Mission + Vision
Our Mission
By 2040, 15 thousand of Minnesota' most dynamic & diverse leaders working on our communities' toughest challenges.
Our Vision
A more unified Minnesota, built upon communities that care.
Our Approach
We work towards this cultural tipping point through three pillars of Education, Systems-Change, and Pathways.
Our main Pathways Program includes the Hometown Fellowship. We recruit, train, and place young leaders in two-year paid fellowships in their hometown or home state communities - particularly in places with bold visions, but lack the capacity to attract and retain the next generation of leaders to carry it forward.
Joe Grochmal, Fellow
A mural painted by a Native artist in the Lower Sioux Dakota Immersion Daycare Center
Union speaks to the vision of shared prosperity, justice, and connectedness between our urban and rural regions, and across all members of our local communities.
Communities that care speak to the vision of collective community leadership practicing “resilient togetherness” in service of local action toward systems change.
Street mural outside Hmong supermarket in Walnut Grove
2019 Changemaker Summit in Washington, D.C.
Lead For America
LFMN is a state affiliate of Lead for America, a national 501c(3), sharing national recruitment and operations support.
LFMN Fellows are part of LFA's national movement of change-makers. They attend the annual Changemaker Summit, build an intimate network of locally-rooted leaders, engage in the wide breadth of LFA programming across core pillars, and have access to LFA's national network of leading mentors - which includes mayors & elected officials, Nobel Peace Prize nominees, scholarly experts, and community leaders.
LFA works on three core pillars:
Our Team
LFA Co-Founder & Executive Director,
Lead For Minnesota
Deputy Director,
Lead For Minnesota
Director of Programs,
Lead For Minnesota

Tucker
Napping Specialist,
Lead For Minnesota
Founder,
Voices for Rural Resilience
Founder,
Department of Public Transformation
Faculty Coordinator,
Vice Chancellor of Student & Academic Affairs - UMN Crookston
Rural Programs Director,
Rethos Places Reimagined
President,
Growth & Justice
President,
Northland Foundation
Executive Director,
Lower Sioux Child Care Center
Veden Chair of Rural Development/Director of Strategic Initiatives, UMN Crookston
Owner,
Tiffany Farms






