Powering the Future of West Central Minnesota

By Anna Wasescha, President, West Central Initiative

“Local leaders of all stripes, confident that they can contribute something valuable to their communities, can see the impediments but still find a path forward—then others rise to seize the new opportunities as they appear.”

Minnesotans should feel immensely proud right now—of who we are and of how we have come together in solidarity in 2026. This is a unique state, consistently the highest in voter participation, with a vibrant network of public schools, libraries, parks, and trails that offer everyone opportunities to learn, connect, create, and enjoy a good life.

Minnesota is also a large state, and its regions are distinct. For example, in our west-central region, Otter Tail County has more lakes than any other county in the entire country. Traverse County has fewer people than any other county in the state. Most of our 82 towns have fewer than 1,000 people. Ours is a “small is beautiful” region, except when it comes to farms and our side of the Fargo-Moorhead metropolitan area, where we have big-city amenities such as an international airport, several universities and colleges, miles of retail, and a Paul Bunyan-sized footprint of the Sanford medical enterprise.

Where nature has been generous with lakes and prairies, sun and clement weather, the built environment has seen strong development. In addition to the interstate highway, thousands of miles of blue highways wind through main streets, alongside farmsteads, and on the edges of miles and miles of corn and soybean fields. And though imperfect, the information highway runs nearly everywhere as well and connects rural communities to the entire globe. Those farm fields produce wealth here because of our soil and sun and rain and that has enormous value when the harvest is sold and then shipped out by truck or rail or airplane to join the rest of the world’s commercial economy.

Meanwhile, capital of another sort—the kind that is generated by people working together to create thriving communities—is also evidence everywhere. We have teachers, mayors, snowplow drivers, doctors, plumbers, grocers, and basically every imaginable kind of work that individuals choose to do or find worth doing, all of which add up to making a community livable. And it is at that very local level—neighbor to neighbor, friend to friend—where rural regions are thriving, humming like well-oiled sewing machines, that the Minnesota Initiative Foundations have helped make a lasting difference.

In 1986, when all six of us were founded by the McKnight Foundation, the farm economy in west central Minnesota was in dire straits. Bankruptcies were high, the number of suicides was high, and the feeling of malaise was widespread. It was a “hinge of history” moment, where the outcome was truly uncertain. Was rural going to die? Or could the rural people themselves, with some philanthropic help from their neighbors who had been given encouragement and starter capital from the McKnight Foundation, find a path forward?

The answer, of course, is “yes, and that was probably the only way that it would work.” Community foundations like ours are place-based and responsive to what is happening in our region. West Central Initiative is also a regional development organization, so we have access to tremendous amounts of data and a rich pipeline of information from conversations with our communities. When we put together what we know with what we hear, not just in our region but also across the globe, we can unite people, ideas, and resources. That was our tagline forty years ago—and it still works today.

One of the best examples of this is our Municipal Solar Cohort. For the past few years, Minnesotans have had state and federal incentives available to help municipal buildings install solar panels on their roofs. Many small towns in our region operate city halls, libraries, maintenance garages, and even liquor stores. If these buildings could generate electricity locally, they could reduce their monthly utility bills, freeing funds for other public investments.

Small towns in rural areas often rely on part-time city clerks and, nearly if not completely, volunteer mayors and city council members. The rebates and incentives for renewable energy installations are attractive, but they are made on a reimbursement basis, and many small towns don’t have reserves to pay upfront costs. And for individual towns, even exploring solar energy can be overwhelming. They must vet vendors, estimate payback periods, and navigate rebates and tax credits—tasks that make transitioning to renewable energy and saving taxpayer money feel out of reach.

West Central Initiative invited local mayors to join a cohort to explore how solar could work in their communities. We stepped in to handle every gap—from identifying where a solar installation could go to teaching users how to use an app to track exactly how many kilowatt-hours their solar installations produce each day. Ten communities in the first cohort will collectively save more than $1,480,000 over 30 years.

Twelve more communities are participating in the second cohort. The group experience builds strong bonds from town to town, which stokes regional pride and identity. Distributed solar installations reduce emissions, protect the environment, and support the regional economy.

West Central Initiative’s climate work rides the same wave of renewable energy that McKnight could see in the fiber of a struggling rural Minnesota forty years ago. Local leaders of all stripes, confident that they can contribute something valuable to their communities, can see the impediments but still find a path forward—then others rise to seize the new opportunities as they appear. The hope for a positive future resides in the people, in their hearts and minds, propelled by the courage that resonates through their system. This is how we got here in 2026. We are all Minnesota now.

Learn more about West Central Initiative and their work at wcif.org.