About the Partnership

The Change Network Minnesota leadership program is delivered by a bold and ambitious partnership between the Cultural Wellness Center and the Public and Nonprofit Leadership Center at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs, supported by the Bush Foundation. Our organizations have spent many years in a co-learning relationship about institutional change, culture, race, and capacity development. Via this program, our organizations and people bring their best selves to the work.

For this cohort leadership program, the Cultural Wellness Center and the Public and Nonprofit Leadership Center will bring together two systems of knowledge, and we will present the fullness of each framework. The two distinct knowledge systems represent two ways of knowing. One knowledge system comes from an academic approach to education where knowledge is generated through research and practice. The other knowledge system comes from a culturally embedded approach to education that is based in the experiential and organic knowledge gained in the specifics of living. Participants of the Change Network Minnesota program will benefit and co-learn with us.

​Learn more about the partners below.

Unleashing the power of citizens to heal themselves and build community.

Founded in 1996, the Cultural Wellness Center is one of the primary community and cultural knowledge-production organizations in the Twin Cities region. We are about people, from people, and for people. We partner with organizations, institutions, and people within communities to develop models to solve problems and create lasting solutions. Our People’s Theory of Sickness states that individualism, loss of culture, and loss of community, makes you sick. In many cases, this is at the core of the problems faced by people in communities.​

Our work is to unleash the power of citizens to heal themselves and to build community. Through partnerships, we build a body of knowledge and web of relationships that support community engagement, intercultural communication, and personal responsibility. Community and cultural knowledge are at the forefront of building community. The Cultural Wellness Center believes that culture is the glue for holding community together. All people have culture. When studied and valued, it becomes a powerful resource for community health and healing.

To learn more, visit us at www.culturalwellnesscenter.org

We cultivate adaptive, transformative leaders.

​The Public and Nonprofit Leadership Center (PNLC) at the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs prepares people to lead and manage in a diverse world, facilitating application across organizational, geographic, and society boundaries. As a community of faculty, staff, students and practitioners that creates and nurtures excellence in public affairs management and leadership through research, teaching, professional development, and outreach, we are a vital resource in the community.

The center conducts rigorous and relevant research that builds public and nonprofit capacity. We provide resources, connections, and community for public affairs leaders and managers. We create learning materials that build individual capacity. Our efforts expand the body of public affairs knowledge in the academic community, as well as the public and nonprofit sectors. Our cross-sector approach allows us to redesign systems and facilitate the implementation of policy that affects the lives of the people our programs touch.​

​To learn more, visit us at our page on hhh.umn.edu

This partnership is made possible by the support of the Bush Foundation. 

​At the Bush Foundation we invest in great ideas and the people who power them. We encourage individuals and organizations to think bigger and think differently about what is possible in communities across Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and the 23 Native nations that share the same geographic area.

The Foundation was established in 1953 by 3M executive Archibald Bush and his wife, Edyth. Inspired by the Bushes’ desire to build their community and encourage innovation, the Foundation has invested nearly one billion dollars in grants to thousands of organizations and individuals.

​To learn more, visit us at www.bushfoundation.org