Fostering Regional Resilience through Citizen

Regional Sustainable
Development Partnerships
Fostering Regional Resilience
through Citizen-driven
Partnerships
Slide 1: Title Page
David: Hello and Welcome to our session on Fostering Regional Resilience through Citizendriven Partnerships
My name is David Fluegel, I
•  Have been a member of CDS for many years as a practitioner and
•  coordinated a 3-day post-conference tour as part of the joint CDS-National Rural
Development Partnership-MN Rural Partners conference held in Duluth in 2001
•  Worked 15 years as operations manager and community programs specialist with the UMM
Center for Small Towns
•  Currently am a program director of a unique initiative being implemented by the University
of Minnesota called the Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships that focuses on
creating innovation with long-term regional development and
•  I was immediately captivated with the theme of this years CDS conference on innovation
through regional collaboration
•  I appreciate this opportunity to share information about the RSDPs with y’all and to be copresenting with Naomi Wente who is an extraordinarily talented and accomplished
undergraduate student at UMM
Naomi: My name is Naomi Wente, I
•  Am a recent student member of CDS
•  Senior at the University of MN, Morris, studying environmental studies and political science
•  I have been heavily involved with service learning and community/campus organizing –
particularly around sustainable food systems. For the past three years, I served on the
board of a local food co-op, serving as President my Junior year of college. This type of
work – building regional resilience is a strong passion of mine!
Our 15 Minutes with
CDS in Charleston
• 
• 
• 
The Big Idea with the
RSDPs
Fostering Regional
Resilience
University-community
partnerships and outcomes
Slide 2: Overview
Naomi: In the next 15 minutes or so we will share with you the essence of the Regional
Sustainable Development Partnerships program in Minnesota
We will be focusing on
1.  The Big Idea and what makes this program so unique
2.  How it works to foster regional resilience and
3.  How partnerships created between community residents and their land grant university have
led to even more innovation
The Big Idea: the RSDP Model
Slide 3: The Big Idea
David:
The Big Idea: the UM Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships
model:
•  Started as a grand experiment nearly 15 years ago – borne of faculty
idealism, MN agrarian populism, and legislative funding
•  Works to build the sustainability and resilience of communities and
industries in greater Minnesota (not TC metro area)
•  Creates citizen-driven University partnerships to actively address communityidentified priorities that foster sustainable development for regional
resilience
•  As a model of solving shared problems for the common good - there was no
other program like it in the country
BEDROCK
PRINCIPLES
SUSTAINABILITY
PRINCIPLES
GOALS
Slide 4: Core Principles, Goals
Naomi: The Partnerships program was founded on core principals and goals:
The three Bedrock Principles are:
1.  Developing and sustaining a richer and more vibrant partnership with citizens of each region and their land
grant university
2.  Addressing agricultural, natural resources, and tourism issues
3.  Promoting the concept of active citizenship
The Sustainability Principles that the Partnerships follow include:
1.  Interdependence of Global and Local decisions
2.  Stewardship
3.  Measuring our Effectiveness
4.  Shared Responsibility for sustaining communities, environment, and economy
And, finally, our Goals are to:
1.  Establish partnerships between the University of Minnesota and Minnesotans
2.  Employ a systems perspective
3.  Direct research, education, and outreach resources of the University of Minnesota
4.  Increase community input
5.  Preserve and strengthen agricultural and natural resources systems
How it works: Structure
Slide 5: How it works-Structure
David:
The RSDPs are:
•  Multi-college and system-wide program embedded within Extension
•  Five Regional service areas
•  Board of Directors that are made up of citizens with diverse backgrounds
and a small number of University faculty and staff from a wide range of
departments
•  Regional Director
•  Statewide office
•  Statewide Coordinating Committee provides leadership for the RSDP's
coordinated efforts. Composed of staff and citizens from each region, atlarge citizen representatives, and representatives of three collaborating UM
colleges
•  Statewide director, Clean Energy Resource Teams and local foods staff
•  Reporting to a “Council of Deans”
•  Story of the map–The circles are intentionally loose, overlapping, and open for
citizen interpretation.
Slide 6: Focus Areas
Naomi:
•  The Partnerships support sustainable development in greater
Minnesota by directing University resources to address
community-identified research, education, and outreach needs
in the areas of:
1. Sustainable Food and Agriculture
2. Renewable Energy
3. Natural Resources and Water
4. Sustainable Tourism and Resilient Communities
on an on-going, long-term basis…”
How it works: Process
Center Court
Community
– identified
Project
U of MN
“In-Reach”
Community
-based
Resources
Slide 7: RSDP process
David:
The RSDP process steps include:
1. Using a center court approach to bring many community and university
voices together into conversations to identify needs and opportunities
•  Study circles, listening sessions, theatre productions, etc.
2. Project ideas are developed into written proposals by individuals or groups
3. Proposals are reviewed by a citizen-driven board of directors that holds
decision making authority to either approve or make suggestions for
improvement to the proposed projects.
4. The Partnership director and board also help make connections with
additional community- and university research and education resources
(called “in-reach)
5. When the project is compete, an assessment is made on project outcomes.
Positive Impacts
•  15 years in operation
•  Nearly 500 community-based projects
•  More than $25 million allocated and leveraged for
projects
•  Success in scaling up the infrastructure
Slide 8: Highlights
Naomi:
Highlights of the RSDPs accomplishments include:
• 
• 
• 
• 
15 years in operation with ongoing legislative support
Nearly 500 community-based projects
More than $25 million allocated and leveraged for projects
Success in scaling up community-based projects to statewide level
development
Scaling Up: Energy
Slide 9: Scaling Up: Energy
David:
The RSDP promotes community scale solutions that can be scaled up to statewide and national levels.
Two quick examples:
First, is a project that was embedded within the land-grant University
Wind Turbine & Biomass Facility Projects (DOE Grant)
A three-year project of UM West Central Research and Outreach Center and University of Minnesota, Morris
to develop a community-scale distributed energy system and serve as a demonstration, training and
research site using natural resources and agricultural products for energy production. Includes construction
of research models of a wind turbine and a biomass facility
The idea is to generate energy from resources already located within the region
Dedication last week: wind energy to create hydrogen for producing anhydrous ammonia for the corn field
site includes two 1.65MW wind turbines. Each provides UMM with 5.6 million kilowatt hours of
power each year; this is about 70% of UMM’s annual electricity requirement. Dollars from UMM help
fund additional research
1. 
2. 
3. 
4. 
• 
• 
SCALE UP: This Renewable Energy project helped generate interest and opportunity for creating the Clean
Energy Resource Teams to advance the adoption of renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in
communities across Minnesota to build our clean energy future.
• 
Established in 2003
• 
Major Accomplishments:
•  Helped Minnesotans save over 78 billion BTUs of energy and avoid $1.2 million in energy costs
since 2010
•  Awarded over $720,000 in seed grants to more than 165 energy projects from 2006–2012
•  Ongoing separate legislative funding – secured Spring 2013
Scaling Up: Food Systems
Slide 10: Scaling Up- Local Foods
Naomi:
Another example of a community project that was scaled up to a statewide level is
the Willmar Community Greenhouse project,
1.  a nonprofit endeavor begun by the Willmar High School Youth Energy Summit students to
bring various community groups together for the purpose of growing local produce yearround.
2.  Students, teachers, and volunteers worked to upgrade the greenhouse to produce healthy,
local foods for their school and community.
3.  The greenhouse is heated primarily by solar and biomass-burning sources.
4.  And Produce is donated to the local food shelf, and sold to the school district and local
residents.
SCALED UP:
This initiative in another example of “scaling up.” The Willmar Community Greenhouse project,
in connection with a strong Farm to School program at the Willmar schools, has become a
model for other schools and has sparked the development of Farm to School programming
across the state!
Farm to School is a national program to get locally produced, farm-fresh foods into schools
There are now tool kits, programming guides, and manuals based upon the Willmar method.
Innovation and Regional Resilience
Slide 11: Summary
David:
In summary, the Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships are:
• 
• 
Entrepreneurial by design
Supporting and creating community-based solutions to today’s complex issues
• 
Encompassing a broad range of activity from Grassroots Discovery to State
policy influence
• 
Unintended Outcome: HOPE- as a repeated evaluation response from citizens
and project partners
David Fluegel
320.349.0498
fluegel@umn.edu
Naomi Wente
507.421.0454
wente013@umn.edu
rsdp.umn.edu
(under construction)
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