2008 Organizational Champion Award Winner:

In 2004, the Bemidji region of north-central Minnesota was a community without direction. There was little cooperation, and though it was growing, it seemed as though opportunities were slipping away. It was a community without a rudder.

Using the principles of the Alliance for Regional Stewardship as guidance, a group of leaders began coming together as stewards of Bemidji’s future. The leaders were encouraged, trained and inspired. After of full year of listening using a variety of civic engagement strategies, these stewards helped the community agree upon a “shared destiny,” and with it an action plan of seventeen destiny drivers to get there. Bemidji Leads! was born.

Bemidji Leads! stewards believe that success is about real change and real action, and Bemidji Leads! has done just that. The results have been incredible:

• After nearly 15 years of struggle, Bemidji Leads! breathed new life into a regional event center effort, and today the funding is in place to make a $70 million center a reality.
• There are new clusters of economic innovation in Bemidji spurred by Bemidji Leads!, including Bemidji Bio and the Ingenuity Frontier, creating jobs for Bemidji in the knowledge economy.
• Through concentrated development and marketing, the regional airport has become a major economic engine.
• More than 10,000 trees were planted in Bemidji last year to reforest the community, and 10,000 more will be planted every year for the next ten.
• The community came together behind a common legislative agenda, and now over 150 community members flood the state legislature as part of Bemidji Day at the Capital.
• The city and surrounding townships agreed to a historic joint planning and annexation agreement, allowing for coordinated planning and development for the entire region.
• A group of community leaders, under the name Shared Vision!, have begun looking to make our community’s cultural diversity a strength.

These are but a few examples of the tangible success stories that this movement has been responsible for. Today, more than 300 community members are working with Bemidji Leads! By working together to place the community first, these everyday residents became something more – a force for positive change in the lives of their neighbors and their community.

Read More>>

2008 Organizational Champion Winners:

• Bemidji Leads
• Graduate Philadelphia

2008 Organizational Champion Finalists:

• Baltimore Washington Corridor Chamber/Corridor Transportation Corporation
• Greater Washington Board of Trade
• Northern Kentucky Tri-County Economic Development Corporation
• Regional Transportation Alliance

Alliance for Regional Stewardship
4875 Eisenhower Ave., Ste. 250, Alexandria VA 22304     
Phone: (703) 998-3560  Fax: (703) 212-9512
E-mail Us