At the Connecting Community Leaders gathering, we brought together people who share a passion and commitment to their communities, and have invested time in leadership education. Together, we unearthed credible tools, knowledge and resources for building communities that thrive. This wiki summarizes the results from the morning's session from the Open Space process. These topics were generated from the question: "When you think of the future for your community, what are the pressing issues that need to be addressed?"

video stories about four Minnesota communities working on leadership, poverty and community change

Ashoka's United States Program is currently seeking a mid-level entrepreneur to contribute to the team's overall Venture strategy and goals – selecting and supporting US-based social entrepreneurs – while ensuring our systems run reliably and efficiently. This person will maintain a large and growing pipeline of Fellow candidates, cultivate and engage field experts across issues and geographies, and communicate with our existing US Fellowship of 135 leading social entrepreneurs. We are interested in staff candidates with the energy for a start-up, the skill to create teams, a solution lens in all endeavors, and the steadiness, excellence, reliability, and empathy that will allow us to grow and sustain our work.

Successful meetings are essential to the quality of decisions made in communities, and to carrying out plans. This resource provides curriculum samples and a list of resources available to help Minnesotans who are tackling issues and need productive meetings. Extension can help your group learn to facilitate meetings more successfully, can provide written educational materials, and can design a public participation process that works.