After ten years of successful work building political infrastructure in the upper Midwest, the Midwest States Center is preparing to close its doors and turn its assets over to a new generation of leaders.
The nonprofit was launched in 1997 to support and advance the progressive movement in upper Midwest States, a region with a long progressive tradition where organizers continue making path-breaking gains in spite of significant challenges of scale, scope and resources. “We helped lay a foundation that is supporting significant new work. The progressive movement in the region is thriving, and we are pleased by the role we’ve been able to play helping organizers create new ways of working and new organizational forms to meet the challenges of our times. There are new alliances and a number of new players in the region as well. As the movement changes, organizational forms need to evolve and change too. It’s time now for new ways of working at the regional level as well,” said founding director Becky Glass.
The Center’s central focus was building progressive infrastructure, primarily through helping leaders of statewide coalitions collaborate across state lines to strengthen their in-state efforts to build “tables” where constituency groups can work together on grassroots organizing, state policy initiatives, and civic engagement and voter participation.
The Center was first and foremost a place where these leaders could come together to step out of their daily routines and think together about the long-term challenges, needs, barriers and opportunities. “The kind of work the Center has done on race and class in our work doesn’t happen anywhere else. Every time I participate in one of the Center’s leadership sessions, I go back home and do better work,” said Sheila Cochran, Chief Operating Officer and Secretary-Treasurer of the Milwaukee Labor Council and last year’s recipient of the NAACP’s prestigious “Keeper of the Flame” award. Cochran is also the immediate past president of the board of directors of the Center’s Wisconsin affiliate, Citizen Action of Wisconsin, where just last year, with the Center’s assistance, she headed up a search for the organization’s new Executive Director Linda Honold. Both Cochran and Honold are current board members of the Midwest States Center.
Over the past decade the Center made a number of other significant contributions toward building progressive infrastructure in the region.
- It provided intensive hands-on support to individual coalitions in Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota and Wisconsin, including assistance with executive director searches and transitions, coaching and mentoring, board development, strategy development, and organizational transitions. “As a result of the Midwest States Center’s continued focus on hands on support for coalition-building, the state coalitions in this region are stronger than they were ten years ago and some are now among the strongest in the country,” observed Seth Borgos, Director of Research and Program Development at the Center for Community Change.
- It helped restructure statewide coalition building. In 2005-06 the Center facilitated an 18-month reorganization in Minnesota that resulted in the launching of TakeAction Minnesota, the Center’s newest affiliate. TakeAction had a significant impact during the 2006 MN elections and is now taking the lead in MN on democracy reform, health care reform, and many other issues. “TakeAction Minnesota unites the power of diverse individuals, organizations, and communities in active grassroots democracy to build social, racial, and economic justice. We would not be here today if not for the work of the Midwest States Center in 2005,” said Dan McGrath, TakeAction’s founding Executive Director.
- It helped launch new initiatives and recruited national organizations into the region. “The Midwest States Center leveraged the relationship between the East-coast-based Grassroots Policy Project and our states, and by so doing brought the worldview work that is now at the heart of our organizing into the region. This has fundamentally changed how we do our work,” said Betty Ahrens, Executive Director of Iowa Citizen Action Network, the Midwest States Center’s Iowa affiliate.
- It built long-lasting relationships among organizers and leaders across the Midwest. “The relationships are key. Because of our connections with colleagues in neighboring states like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa, North Dakota leaders have a clearer understanding that real progress can be made when we work together,” observed Don Morrison, long-time North Dakota leader and founding Executive Director of the Midwest States Center’s North Dakota affiliate, ND People.Org.
- It organized and staffed the Midwest Progressive Elected Officials Network, a major initiative of the Center that is planning to continue. This network, the only one of its kind in the nation, focuses on helping progressive local and state elected officials develop long term strategic relationships with each other within and across states, and between themselves and the citizen groups that make up their constituencies. “Through the Network, state and local elected officials have had the opportunity to meet, to share ideas and inspiration, to dig deeper into the background and history of current problems, and to hone skills for making things happen. Some of us ‘old timers’ have been able to pass on what we know about moving legislation, and perhaps more importantly, what we have learned from the organizers about the critical importance of an organized base outside our marble halls,” said WI State Senator Mark Miller, Co-chair chair of the Midwest Progressive Elected Officials Network and current chair of the Wisconsin Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee. The Network hopes to launch a collaborative leadership development program for local elected officials in 2009. Midwest Progressive Elected Officials Network leaders have already begun convening conversations about how to take the network to the next level.
At a late January board meeting, the Center’s leaders endorsed a plan to close the organization as of April 30, 2008, at the same time confirming the value of what will remain as a result of the Center’s work. “Because of the depth and breadth of the relationships, I feel honored to have been a part of this fine family we’ve built. I know I will do other work with all of you,” said John Campbell, longtime Midwest States Center board member based in Des Moines where he is also a leader with both the United Steelworkers and the NAACP.
Even as it prepares to end its operation, the Midwest States Center is hosting exploratory conversations with state, regional and national leaders about how to use the foundation laid through the Center’s work to build new ways to support the progressive movement in the upper Midwest. Individuals who are interested in the regional exploratory conversations about supporting the progressive movement in the upper Midwest, send an email to: explore@midweststatescenter.org.”
Individuals interested in exploratory conversations about the future of the elected officials network, send an email to: “mpeonfuture@midweststatescenter.org”.
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