Introducing the Minnesota Equity Blueprint

The Blueprint is out! Read more about it and access individual sections here.

Thriving by Design – Rural & Urban Together is a bold joint effort by OneMN.org and Growth & Justice to spark a movement for Minnesota that builds a new future for our state where all Minnesotans can thrive together. After spending a year convening Minnesotans, we unveiled our Minnesota Equity Blueprint for Minnesota, which includes dozens of policy recommendations for the legislature, the State, and local communities. The chapters of the Blueprint include:

• Human Capital
• Economic Development
• Infrastructure
• Environmental Resilience

The Process

This is a document and a movement for and of the people – a truly unique process. It began with a multi-day convening in Upper Sioux Community & Granite Falls with a diversity of people from all over the state. They talked, they listened, maybe they argued— but in the end, they came up with a list of hundreds of things Minnesotans care about. Collectively, they prioritized that list.

We brought that list to communities and neighbors around the state in small groups hosted by locals. More discussion, listening, and deciding.

The Future

The staff members at Thriving by Design have been compiling the reports based on citizen participation, and while we’ve rolled out the blueprint, that doesn’t mean we’re finished. We are here to keep the momentum going with more local meetings, more participation, more digging and sharing as we prepare to take it to legislators and local leaders.

Thriving by Design and the Blueprint have also paved the way for another project— the Rural Communities Equity Action Guide. The guide was produced as a partnering project between Growth & Justice and the Region Five Development Commission, with the goal of providing a road map on how to create equitable economic ecosystems. You can view the Equity Action Guide here.

Please contact us if you want to join the network!