Bush Foundation Helps Expand Blandin Foundation Community Leadership Program
Bush Foundation Helps Expand Blandin Foundation Community Leadership Program
The Bush Foundation in St. Paul, Minnesota, has announced a $425,832 grant to the Grand Rapids-based Blandin Foundation to extend the work of the Blandin Community Leadership Program.
The program works to help rural leaders develop the skills, knowledge, and relationships they need to build and sustain healthy communities. The grant will enable the program to be offered to four additional communities in 2009, where a hundred individuals will be trained.
The Bush Foundation has focused on leadership development since 1965, when it established the Bush Leadership Fellowship Program, and its support of the Blandin program complements one of its three Goals for a Decade — to develop courageous leaders and engage entire communities in solving problems. Successful achievement of that goal would mean that by 2018, 75 percent of people in all demographic groups in Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota will say their community is effective at solving problems and improving their quality of life.
"The impressive history of the Blandin Community Leadership Program makes it a natural partner for the Bush Foundation when it comes to leadership development and engaging communities in solving problems," said Bush Foundation president Peter C. Hutchinson. "We have great expectations for the impact the combined work of the two foundations will have on people and communities in Minnesota."
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