Strengthen ND CI Report – Interim

What has been most instrumental to your progress?

One of the specific activities that pushed forward this project at the Tuttle Rural Innovation Center is the opportunity that we had to host and participate in a workshop from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and their Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design (CIRD) program. Tuttle was the first community in North Dakota to host a CIRD workshop, and it was a fantastic mechanism to engage non-traditional stakeholders who may not pay much attention to small communities.

Through the CIRD workshop, we had the ability to access national resource team members skilled in building consensus, facilitating community buy-in, and developing sustainable organizations. The resource team members we were able to access included experts in developing local foods systems; creating a sense of place through food, art, and culture; and planning and executing successful multi-use facilities. Additionally, we are able to access these experts after our agreement with CIRD expires on December 31st, with an additional opportunity to engage in a cohort of creative placemaking entities through NEA.

Another series of activities that we have been able to utilize to further this project is strategically leveraging resources. The specific resources that have yielded some of the most return on investment have included the National Civilian Conservation Corps (NCCC), ND Rural Rehab, State of ND, and JLG Architects.

NCCC & ND Rural Rehab: By leveraging these resources, TRIC was able to obtain $50,000 to purchase materials to improve the cleanliness and overall look of the facility. By engaging with NCCC, TRIC was able to host 8 very talented and hardworking young individuals to stay on-site at the facility and provide labor to renovate the space over a 6-week period.

State of ND Partners In Marketing Grant: By leveraging resources and activities being undertaken at the TRIC facility, TRIC was able to leverage a $25,000 Partners in Marketing grant from the ND Dept. of Commerce to provide an in-depth assessment of the economic picture of the region, including gaps and strengths, to inform future TRIC development.

JLG Architects: By leveraging the JLG 1% program, TRIC was able to obtain the talent to execute a full-scale building assessment for the facility for free.

The final activity that has yielded great results has been strengthening partnerships in the local foods sector to support strategy development at TRIC. With this work, our team has tried to be radically inclusive of all potential organizations and individuals working in this space. To date, we have meaningfully engaged the ND Association of Regional Electric Cooperatives (NDAREC) Rural Grocers Task Force, ND Local Foods Development Alliance (NDLFDA), Coalition for a Hunger Free ND, and NDSU Extension Service & Community Vitality. Because of these partnerships, we have been able to become privy to additional opportunities like the Environmental Protection Agency’s Local Foods Toolkit and workshop opportunity which we plan to pursue when the applications open again in the fall of 2019. Furthermore, because of these partnerships, we have been able to plan an event that will be beneficial to not only the community of Tuttle but also the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. In March 2019, TRIC & Standing Rock will be hosting a nationally known expert in the field of gleaning. Gleaning is the art of making use of often discarded foods to make healthy, nutritional meals.

Key lessons learned

With the work we have conducted over the last 12 months, we have run into a specific roadblock around community engagement. We already knew going into this work that the demographics of Tuttle would be challenging. As of the last election, Tuttle residents comprise 58 people, with only 3 being under the age of 40. To say this is a unique population would be an understatement. With this population, being radically inclusive of surrounding communities, state agencies, and mission-aligned organizations nearly worked against us. Many established residents who are of an older generation felt that we had engaged with ‘outsiders’ to come and ‘tell them what to do’ – which couldn’t be more opposite of our intention. This struggle has highlighted the need for us to re-think our community engagement strategy and how we tell the story of the good work being done. This translated into a perceived ‘failure’ by the consultants we had engaged with for the CIRD workshop when they were disappointed in the number of people attending our workshop. While we had nearly 50 people who meaningfully engaged over 2 days, they felt as though we didn’t reach out enough.

Another lesson that we have had to learn the hard way over the last year is that it can be difficult to overcome the perceived ‘rural stigma’ on both sides of the equation: Tuttle residents and agencies invested in the work.

Tuttle Residents: The ‘rural stigma’ we are having to overcome with regard to Tuttle residents is the notion or feeling that ‘nothing is ever going to change’. Many of the residents living in the community have seen the community slowly decline over many years. They have seen their children leave and their peers leave. They don’t feel as though any intervention undertaken will make a ‘meaningful’ impact on the area.

Agencies Invested in the Work: The ‘rural stigma’ we are having to overcome with regard to agencies serving rural ND is the perception that communities like Tuttle are a lost cause. They aren’t willing to understand why this level of investment of time and resources is warranted. This has been a painstaking education process with the involved representatives to explain and re-explain why EVERYONE living in ND deserves a high quality of life – even if they aren’t generating a significant level of taxable value for the state.

Reflections on inclusive, collaborative or resourceful problem-solving

All three elements of the community innovation process have been critical to the success of this project so far – all equally critical.

Inclusive: By being inclusive to other communities, our project has gained significant levels of buy-in from surrounding counties while also building their capacity to enact similar change in their communities in the future. Their support has been crucial as we hope to turn the tide of residents actually residing in Tuttle.

Collaborative: By working with so many organizations, the results of our work are more likely to succeed with their buy-in and access to resources. Additionally, through collaboration, we are able to add to the overall sustainability of the activities of the project, including the TRIC facility.

Resourceful: We have been able to leverage the activities of the CI grant access resources that would have been out of our reach from JLG Architects, NEA’s CIRD, NCCC, and Rural Rehab. Because of being resourceful, we have been able to magnify the impacts of the Bush Foundation’s initial investment.

Other key elements of Community Innovation

The steering committee’s perseverance has been vital to the progress made during year 1 of our community innovation grant. With any project that individuals are undertaking in the community, there will always be naysayers; however, our team was surprised at the noise level of the naysayers. Even after the work our team has completed in year 1 at the TRIC facility received a Main Street Excellence Award from Governor Doug Burgum, many in the community still believe that nothing is going to happen. This negative attitude can be detrimental to teams undertaking this difficult work, but the team assembled has never waivered from our goals and continues to press on.

Understanding the problem

The work completed to date has uncovered the appetite from communities outside of the Tuttle area to work together for local foods strategy development for the region. This directive came as a result of our CIRD workshop from the community members in attendance. There is a willingness to set aside any competitive feelings and undertake activities that can be beneficial for the area as a whole – even if that activity or amenity isn’t specifically located in their community. This is a large barrier that we have been able to overcome and great clarity that we have been able to gain about the scope of the work to be completed. It is exciting to think of how our work will impact not only the community of Tuttle, but the region as a whole.

If you could do it all over again…

If we were to go back to the start of the grant period, we would give ourselves the advice to educate the community better about how grants work and how grant dollars are monitored. One of our biggest missteps was plowing forward without educating the community on the purpose of the community innovation dollars. Because there is very little understanding with the population around grants and grant dollars work, there is a misconception that: 1) these funds can be utilized for building or infrastructure improvements; 2) individuals involved are able to ‘get rich’; or 3) the funds can be captured for uses outside of the scope of the grant objectives and in other communities.

Furthermore, by not educating the community ahead of time, we lost an opportunity to gain larger buy-in from the residents of Tuttle. This is an oversight on our part that we will need to thoughtfully address head on in 2019.

One last thought

A integral piece to our puzzle of success for this project is getting the community kitchen space up and running. This has been challenging due to USDA and Department of Health guidelines that were more rigorous than expected. In order to effectively utilize this space, a fundraising campaign will have to be undertaken to support the needed health and safety renovations. While this seems like a daunting task, we are incredibly excited as we have a list of potential tenants, which will add to the overall sustainability of the space, impact to the economy, and ability to provide local foods to area vulnerable populations.