We ask ourselves this question every day at the Bush Foundation as communities find themselves facing increasingly complex problems with fewer apparent resources, including people willing to step up together to envision, plan and carry out strategies that might ultimately improve community vitality. 

The short answer (still evolving) is:  leadership development is becoming less about individual “leaders” and more about “leadership” residing across sets of people in teams and networks, especially as the Internet and social networking flatten hierarchies and decentralize control. ... more

The Advancing Solutions Team of the Bush Foundation recently hosted 20 community change researchers and evaluators from across the country, many of them colleagues I’ve met through the Community Development Society, a professional association. They came together to help us learn more about the difficult work of measuring progress in complex community change initiatives that seek to improve community vitality. ... more

Joyful exhaustion describes my reflection on completing the recent Minnesota Community Pride Showcase with InCommons event at the Minnesota State Fair earlier this month. We arrived at 6 a.m. to set up Carousel Park (thanks to my colleagues Amy Anderson, Catherine McGuire, and Catherine Jordan for being the early bird crew, too!) and stayed till 6 p.m. to clean up. ... more

Each day across our three-state region, people work together to improve the communities they live in, translating their combined ingenuity and can-do spirit into a statewide vitality that sees us all through the tough economic times.  ... more

If you are into rural development policy like I am, the 2011 gathering of the National Rural Assembly a few weeks ago was THE place to be. Nearly 350 people from across the country—local elected officials, community advocates, nonprofit leaders, federal officials and policy scholars— blew into Saint Paul for a program focused on “Building an Inclusive Nation.” ... more