by Bernadine Joselyn


Every year at its annual conference, the national Council on Foundations issues the Paul Ylvisaker Award for Public Policy Engagement. In 2006, the Blandin Foundation was privileged to receive this award in recognition of our Vital Forests/Vital Communities Initiative, particularly for our efforts to preserve Minnesota’s working forest landscapes.

Because Paul Ylvisaker shares rural Minnesota roots with our foundation’s founder, Charles K. Blandin, the award had special significance for us. The award also reinforced our commitment to Ylvisaker’s vision of philanthropy as a catalyst for systems change.

In 1922, the year Paul Ylvisaker was born in Blue Earth County, Charles K. Blandin was working in Grand Rapids as president of the Itasca Paper Company. He had recently overseen the acquisition of an impressive new “#2 paper machine” at the mill, which remains an important economic driver in our region. Announcing the purchase, the Grand Rapids Herald Review hailed Mr. Blandin as a “progressive man” who would “no doubt be of much benefit to our region.”

That prediction was born out through his decision, in 1941, to create the Blandin Foundation “for the beneficial interests of the residents of the Village of Grand Rapids and Itasca County,” a foundation that he hoped would also demonstrate the value of “helpfulness to one’s fellow man.” At the time of Mr. Blandin’s death in 1958, Ylvisaker was in the middle of the dozen or so years he spent at the Ford Foundation, where he was developing what he called his “Gray Areas” project — an integrated set of programs designed to tackle nothing less ambitious than the human costs of urban decay.

Blandin Foundation's Minnesota Forest Legacy Partnership, part of its Vital Forests/Vital Communities Initiative, has worked to preserve over 53,000 acres of Minnesota's working forest landscapes. Photo courtesy of Blandin Foundation

Both men were concerned above all with people; Ylvisaker described as an “intellectual breakthrough” his appreciation that he was dealing with “people problems,” not bricks and mortar problems. And both men shared an appreciation of the significance of individual action and of the importance of honoring the responsibility we all carry for one another.

Empowering and motivating people to act on the responsibility we carry for ourselves and for one another is at the heart of public policy engagement. Informed engagement is the bread and butter of democratic societies. Practice suggests that the best solutions to tough social problems are those that take into account the perspectives, experiences and aspirations of the greatest and the smallest alike. Foundations have a unique obligation to do what it takes to ensure that all responsible voices have a place at the table of public discourse and decision-making.

Philanthropy’s special role in society is formalized in a social contract that exempts it from paying taxes, but in return, society expects good works. Because we do not have to sell products, get elected or pay shareholders, foundations are uniquely positioned to initiate thought and action, experiment with new and untried ventures, dissent from prevailing attitudes, and act quickly, flexibly and fearlessly.

This freedom only underscores the opportunity — indeed, the obligation — of foundations to fulfill their role as society’s R&D arm for the common good.

At the Blandin Foundation, we have accepted the premise that delivering fully on the opportunity and obligation of philanthropy requires wading into the messy world of public policy engagement. We began Vital Forests/Vital Communities with the goal of achieving a triple bottom line: to strengthen the competitiveness of Minnesota’s forest-based economy, increase the vitality of our forest-dependent communities, and improve the long-term ecological health of the forest systems on which both depend.

By convening a broad range of stakeholders to identify challenges and opportunities, framing those opportunities in ways that led to effective action, commissioning and promulgating research to inform our search for solutions, and designing mechanisms to leverage state, federal and private dollars, the foundation created a unique public-private partnership that will protect working forest landscapes in perpetuity — to the economic, social and environmental benefit of our state.

"We must remember our opportunity and obligation to build a better world, including — importantly — through the public policy process."

We have learned that public policy engagement work requires active listening and big doses of humility. It requires patience and partners. It requires understanding people’s self-interest, and the ability to help people connect their self-interest with the common good. It requires connecting with people where they are. And it requires both outrage and hope. In the end, public policy leadership is about organizing hope. I believe that is what Paul Ylvisaker meant when he spoke of philanthropy’s obligation to encourage people to “take part in the weaving of the tapestry” of our lives.

We who are privileged to work in this field must not disappoint Mr. Blandin, Mr. Ylvisaker, ourselves, or the next generation that will inherit the world we leave behind. We must remember our opportunity and obligation to build a better world, including — importantly — through the public policy process.

© Copyright 2008 Minnesota Council on Foundations
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