Rural Placemaking Grants

The Rural Placemaking Grants by the Blandin Foundation aim to enhance the quality of life in the most diverse and underserved rural communities. By promoting community engagement through creative initiatives, this program seeks to foster pride and connection among residents. Grants typically range from $25,000 to $150,000, addressing projects that uplift local civic spaces and encourage participation from marginalized groups, contributing to overall community well-being and economic growth.

Please note: We anticipate a high number of inquiries; Blandin Foundation funding will be directed toward the smallest, lowest income, most diverse, and remote communities. Deadline dates may change depending on the volume of applications received.
Maintaining and improving the quality of rural places, to help people feel connected, invested, and proud of where they live.
What is Rural Placemaking?
Placemaking is a comprehensive approach to community development that encourages residents to connect and contribute toward a shared vision for their community, and work toward achieving that vision. It can include creative and cultural activities, community-centered design, and lively gathering spaces – helping people feel connected to one another and their community.
Placemaking should engage across sectors of the community including public, private and philanthropic organizations, and include residents often overlooked, such people with lower incomes, young people, and community members from Native and other cultural communities. An inclusive process builds trust and increases a community’s capacity to take action around shared values, ultimately leading to greater community well-being.
Placemaking projects may be as simple as new playground equipment or bathrooms at the park, renovations to a community center or other public building, a mural on the side of a building, or converting an empty lot into a pop-up park. These activities, though seemingly minor, can make a huge difference in the character of the town, and draw people together to use the amenity. It can help promote connections between people, foster community pride, help residents see that they can make change, and their place is worth investing in.
The Case for Rural Placemaking
Studies demonstrate that placemaking activities such as public arts and events, revitalization and community development build connection and civic pride, along with confidence in creating opportunity, a voice in decision-making, a sense of community self-determination, respect for diversity, cooperation and community attachment, which is significantly correlated with economic growth.
Placemaking originated as a way to increase urban vitality, and Rural Placemaking initiatives, while gaining ground, are often adaptations of urban practice. One objective of Blandin Foundation’s Rural Placemaking grant program is to gather data from non-metropolitan placemaking activities that will more deeply inform rural practice and impact — particularly in communities under 5,000.
Capacity Building
Building placemaking skills and resources.Build (or research) the skills and resources of local arts, government (including Tribal government), and community development organizations to engage in Placemaking, or to support the local or regional creative economy.Fundraising/Grant-writing assistance.
Consulting expertise.
Leadership skill-building.
Employing the arts and creative sector to address civic challenges and opportunities.
Planning
Planning for Placemaking initiatives.
Engage community members around evaluating community assets and potential to inform placemaking activities.
Plan for quality public spaces that contribute to community connectedness and wellbeing.
Research to support placemaking planning efforts.
Planning community arts and culture initiatives, including Tribal, cultural preservation, and food sovereignty initiatives.
Implementation
Executing a placemaking initiative or project.Engage in a Placemaking process.
Community art projects.
Piloting new arts and culture events.
Facilitating gatherings and discussions to promote change on critical issues.
Strengthening sovereignty – Tribal governance and cultural revitalization (including powwows).
Creation, design, or enhancement of indoor and outdoor public gathering spaces: community, cultural, and multipurpose centers, ceremonial grounds, downtowns/main streets, parks, and libraries.
Our Commitment to Reducing Disparities
The Foundation will consider these disparities when making funding decisions.
What that means is that proposals for amenity upgrades or beautification projects from communities that are small (under 5000), more remote, lower income, and with greater racial diversity will be considered more favorably than similar projects from larger rural hub communities. In larger communities and population centers (county seats), projects should be more sophisticated and/or innovative, build the capacity of the community to engage in placemaking, and include an explicit strategy to engage people who are often underrepresented in the community.
Please see FAQs on the Grant Eligibility & Applications page for additional guidelines and information.
Funding Range
Please request an amount that speaks to what you need to complete your proposal. Typical grant awards will be between $25,000 and $150,000. Funded projects can have a timeframe of up to 3 years. Requests over $250,000 may follow a different timeline for review and approval.

Eligibility

Projects should demonstrate how community participation in decision making around improvements to physical spaces will result in:New or strengthened capacity for local community development, including seeking artist and cultural perspectives when addressing civic challenges and opportunities.
Improve the quality of civic discourse around issues that affect a community’s ability to thrive, such as an increased number of people engaged in community conversations, including typically under-represented populations, or improved ability of community members to take productive action around an issue.Or involve making visible improvements to community gathering spaces, including increased visibility of arts and culture in the community:New or upgraded indoor and outdoor public spaces and/or community amenities.
Increased number of community art installations and/or cultural activities.
New or strengthened arts and cultural organizations.
Increased number of community members participating in arts and culture activities.
Boost impact of the creative economy in rural communities.Grantee organizations and projects must align with Blandin Foundation’s mission and meet the following requirements:Authorized by the Internal Revenue Service as having Section 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status or be fiscally sponsored by an eligible organization for charitable purposes or categorized as a Tribal government entity, public agency, or a unit of government with a charitable purpose.
Must adhere to Blandin Foundation’s Anti-Discrimination Policy.Applicants under this RFP will be required to meet the following target geography and/or population requirements:Be Native Nations, cities, towns, and townships in the Blandin Foundation local giving area: Itasca County plus Northome, Blackduck, Hill City, and Remer. Find the size of your community using the U.S. Census.
Organizations (including fiscal sponsors) located in rural hubs of more than 5,000 people may apply if funding can be demonstrated to directly benefit small communities.For applicants utilizing a Fiscal Sponsor, please contact our grants team prior to submitting an LOI.Funding should address one or more of the following.A known community need and/or issue facing its residents.
Show engagement across different beliefs, races, ages, genders, socioeconomic status, educational, physical and cognitive abilities, and differing experiences present in the community.
Systemic barriers through new or continued partnerships; implementing projects that are sustainable, innovative, scalable and/or replicable; increasing the capacity of the community to engage in, plan or facilitate activities.
Demonstrate ideas that move small communities forward.
Show evidence of community support.Examples of community support (monetary and nonmonetary):Volunteer time
Donated space
Donated equipment uses and laborThere is not a matching requirement, but organizations are encouraged to leverage other resources.Capital expenditures such as building projects may be considered in communities that demonstrate the greatest need, especially in communities under 5,000 residents.

Ineligibility

Metro-based organizations are ineligible to apply for funding under this RFP.We will not fund the following:Grants primarily supporting cities/towns with populations more than 5,000Grants to organizations outside of the state of MinnesotaGeneral operating supportGrants to individualsGrants intended to influence specific legislation, specific candidates, or lobbyingIntervene in any campaign for elective public office, or support or oppose any political party, by expenditure of any resource, including volunteered labor, or in any other waySupplant public funding for development of infrastructure ordinarily provided by government entities such as water, sewer, roads, streets, and public safetyReligious organizations seeking funding for religious purposesGrants for private benefit, including for-profit businesses or commercial ventures