Engage Rural Impact Report
In 2022, we partnered with the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council (SMAC) to launch the Rural Civic Arts Learning Lab, a pilot initiative of our Engage Rural program. Over six months, four rural communities came together to explore the role of arts in civic life through hands-on learning, collaboration, and local experimentation.
We're excited to share this Impact Report, shaped by feedback, reflections, surveys, and interviews with participants and partners. This report highlights the value of the intersection of rural creativity and civic engagement.
Thanks to Blandin Foundation for funding the development of this report, to Hi-Vis for collaborating on the creation and design, and to SMAC for their partnership.
Safe Together: A Quest for Rural Community Safety
Safe Together is a new interactive guide and creative report based on findings from the Rural Minnesota Safety Project—a three–year pilot initiative (2022–2025) aimed at translating Nonviolent Peaceforce’s global approach to unarmed civilian protection into rural Minnesota contexts. In collaboration with two regional partners—The Sowing Room and Northspan—the project engaged community members in Brainerd, Cloquet, and Cook County to explore and define what safety means locally, and how communities can cultivate it together.
Created by the project's evaluative storytellers, Ash Hanson (Department of Public Transformation) and Anna Claussen (Voices for Rural Resilience), this choose-your-own-adventure-style report blends storytelling, community wisdom, and hands-on tools to spark your own local community safety journey. Whether you're a neighbor, practitioner, policymaker, or partner—you’re invited to dive in, adapt, and imagine what safety could look like where you live.
This report was created by DoPT and VfRR, in collaboration with Nonviolent Peaceforce, The Sowing Room, and Northspan, and with support from the Bush Foundation.