Initiators Fellowship supports innovators in transforming rural economies, communities

Kris Shelstad is transforming her rural southwest Minnesota town with the Madison Mercantile, where everyone belongs, new ideas are welcomed, and programs and events are bringing the entire community together.

One year into its launch in Madison, a county seat of 1,509 about an hour west of Willmar, Madison Mercantile serves as a community gathering place, a business incubator, a makerspace, wellness center and more. The publisher of the local newspaper called it a "Swiss Army knife" solution to the city's needs, and rightly so.

Shelstad is one of eight participants in the Initiators Fellowship, a two-year program that supports social innovators in Greater Minnesota. These hometown changemakers bring revenue and jobs to rural communities, build community, and address social and environmental challenges. A creation of the Little Falls-based Initiative Foundation, the program is operated in partnership with three other Minnesota Initiative Foundations: Southwest Initiative Foundation, Northwest Initiative Foundation, and West Central Initiative.

These partner organizations are now seeking the next class of Initiators Fellows from the 53 counties and six Native nations served in greater Minnesota. An eligibility quiz and application remains open through June 15. Interested candidates can learn more and apply at fellows.greaterminnesota.net. Eight fellows — two from each participating Minnesota Initiative Foundation region — receive two years of business coaching, leadership training, personalized mentoring, and $30,000 annually. Since 2018, the program has supported nearly 20 entrepreneurs on their social enterprise journey.

• Greater Minnesota changemaker Hamdia Mohamed, a 2020-21 Initiators Fellow, saw a need for safe and affordable sober housing in the St. Cloud area. With support through the Fellowship, Mohamed received mentorship and financial support that helped expand her Victory Plus Housing program to serve 16 residents at a time.

A refugee to Minnesota from Ethiopia, Mohamed describes her mission in terms that perfectly fit the spirit of the Initiators Fellowship program.

"If you help one person, it's like you are helping [everyone] around them," she told the Star Tribune in 2021. "You are helping their family. You are helping their community. That person gets a job. That person contributes to the society. It will be better off for everyone."

• Nora Hertel, a journalist who has experienced the decline in American newsrooms, is designing a new model for journalism and storytelling for greater Minnesota. Now based in St. Michael, Minn., Hertel has leveraged her time as a 2022-23 Initiators Fellow to launch Project Optimist, a nonprofit online news site focused on telling stories of challenges by spotlighting ways communities can come together to solve them. It's called solutions journalism, and Hertel says she wants to "create a new kind of newsroom that responds to reader problems in greater Minnesota and works to unite our communities in divisive times."

• Fellow Alex Ostenson moved back to his hometown of Evansville just as the town's grocery store was going out of business. The closure threatened to turn Evansville into a food desert, forcing residents to drive to neighboring towns. The former diesel mechanic designed a new business model for small-town grocery stores. He and his wife, Caileen, operate Main Street Market. It's staffed with on-site employees part of the week and is a round-the-clock, self-service pantry operation the rest of the time for those who pay a small membership fee. "Gas stations, grocery stores, cafes are some of the key businesses you need in a small town," Ostenson says. "Once you start to lose them, they cause ripple effects. How long before another business leaves?"

Others among the fellows have addressed unique community needs:

• Hudda Ibrahim launched Filsan Talent Partners, a workforce connection and cultural training consulting firm to help more Somali-Americans meet the talent needs of employers in central Minnesota.

• Noreen Thomas, a longtime organic family farmer outside Moorhead, is cultivating business partnerships to utilize compost and biomass.

• Daniel Barrientez is working on a culinary program in the Bemidji area, including the prospects of a food truck. His enterprise includes healing and job-creating programming for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated Native Americans and other communities.

By investing in the businesses, character and leadership qualities of motivated social entrepreneurs, the Initiators Fellowship is creating a growing and interconnected web of innovation in greater Minnesota.

"The Initiators Fellowship provided me with an incredible launch pad for creating a successful social enterprise," said Erin Schutte Wadzinski, a 2020-21 fellow who runs Kivu Immigration Law in Worthington and is supported by Southwest Initiative Foundation. "The mentorship, financial support, leadership training, and community within the cohort are all pillars of the fellowship that enabled me to dream bigger than I had ever imagined."

Matt Varilek wrote this article as president at the Initiative Foundation. On June 20, he will start his new job as commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. Learn more about the Initiators Fellowship at fellows.greaterminnesota.net.