
Community Initiatives
Building community capacity, one collaborative project at a time

Wilder is committed to addressing complex challenges that will advance equity in Saint Paul and across Minnesota. In our Community Initiatives, we work alongside community collaboratively, crafting solutions that impact systems, organizations, communities and individuals.
Community Initiatives are not programs, but rather time-limited collaborative projects that seek to build community capacity.
For more information on collaborating with us, contact:
- Kirsten Johnson | kirsten.johnson@wilder.org | 651-280-2492
- Sindy Morales Garcia | sindy.moralesgarcia@wilder.org | 651-280-2397
Kick Start Your Initiative With Us
Effective solutions require diverse stakeholders to work together. Serving as a bridge between communities, organizations, systems and perspectives, our work seeks to facilitate and hold space for collaboration and co-creation. We work to guide change, build shared ownership and catalyze collective action through customized solutions. This can be time-intensive, but the investment is worth it as the outcomes achieved are relevant and grounded in reality.
Collaborate with us on your next project
- Community engagement to advance equity
- Trainings to build systems thinking skills
- Integrating a racial equity lens into programmatic or organizational work
- Organizational change projects that build capacity to advance equity
- Supporting community collaborations seeking to advance equity
Gain customized solutions and deliverables
- Design and facilitation of community engagement processes and systems change processes
- Facilitation of Intercultural Development Inventory process
- Training on racial equity, systems thinking, collaboration and community engagement
- Consultation and support of community-driven collaborations
- Multi-faceted organizational change strategies for advancing equity
- Review of organizational programs and policies using a racial equity lens
Current Community Initiatives & Projects in Saint Paul and Minnesota
Community Engagement to Advance Equitable Systems Change
A collaborative working at the intersections of racial equity, community engagement and systems change in order to change how systems operate and equip them to advance equity. Working in partnership with, Nexus Community Partners, People Serving People, the Humphrey School of Public Affairs’ Future Services Institute, and Saint Paul Ramsey County Public Health to develop a set of adaptive, flexible tools and frameworks for advancing equitable systems change.
Collaborative Projects
Network Weavers Community of Practice
A group of practitioners who meet regularly to build our network weaving capacity, with a focus on building networks that dismantle white supremacy and advance racial equity.
Systems Change Projects
Supporting systems in effectively engaging community in order to collaboratively build equitable, accessible and culturally relevant systems. Current projects include:
Winona Health Equity Project
An effort to equip local organizations to collaborate effectively to advance health equity by addressing social determinants of health.
Early Childhood Systems Reform
Partnering with the Minnesota Children’s Cabinet to engage community in reforming our statewide early childhood system in order to create an equitable system.
Resources for Collaborative Success
Check out the practical reference book built upon credible, research-based information as well as the online companion with tools and ideas to help you collaborate successfully.
Check out our guest blog post with Leadership Learning Community
Risk-Taking for Racial Justice: Building Networks That Support Us
In the picture:
- Mishel House, Kirsten Johnson & Sindy Morales Garcia – Wilder Center for Communities
- Scott Labott – Bush Foundation
- Terri Thao & Chalonne Wilson – Nexus Community Partners
- Susan Schuster – Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota
- Amanda Ziebell Mawanda – Propel Nonprofits
October 2019 | MSP Network Weavers – Weaving Racially Just Networks: Collective Meaning Making through Art Evaluation
Reflecting on meaning-making in our society:
- How have we been taught to make meaning?
- How can collective sense-making help advance racial justice in our networks?
- What ways of making meaning does dominant culture privilege or see as most credible/valid?
- What do we miss out on when we are limited to dominant culture’s ways of making meaning?
Click here to read the harvest notes from that conversation.
Before our lunch break, we used Speed Networking and Self-Portrait Network Mapping to continue reflecting on our morning activities. We asked:
- What squared with you? Resonated?
- What is still circling around in your mind?
- What changes or action do you want to take?
Click here to read the harvest notes from that group reflection.
Meet the Community Initiatives Team
Community Initiatives at Wilder are led by a dynamic team of practitioner consultants with long-standing expertise in collaboration, community engagement, racial equity and system change.
Values and lenses that shape our work
- Racial equity – We are driven by a commitment to racial equity and will bring an equity lens to every interaction and initiative in which we engage.
- Community voice – Sustainable change is grounded in the lived realities of those impacted by the issues we seek to address. We honor and prioritize community voices and wisdom in developing solutions and strategies.
- Intersectionality – Each person engaged in our work is shaped by multiple identities and experiences. We welcome and honor the complexity of the work.
- Collaboration – We believe in collaboration as a tool, a skill set and a philosophy. We invite many voices into the conversations and processes we lead, avoiding either/or thinking and making space for both/and solutions.
Practices and approaches you can expect
- Our team is committed to transformational change. We raise questions of sustainability and culture change and always act with the long view in mind.
- We believe that a critical part of our role is to ask the hard questions. Questions that invite reflection on assumptions and defaults you might not be seeing.
- We customize our work to your context. This can be time-intensive – we have found that the investment is worth it as the outcomes achieved are relevant and grounded in reality.
- Our approach engages multiple levels. We will invite you to think about change at an individual, organizational and systems level.