Rural bridge builder put kids first: Diana Anderson reflects on her 22 years with the Southwest Initiative Foundation

“It’s bittersweet,” she says. “The authentic relationships are what really feeds a person, and to think that, gosh, I probably won’t see these people very often anymore — it’s hard.”

From her office overlooking the scenic Crow River rock spillway in downtown Hutchinson, she’s the lead steward guiding the foundation’s mission, which has contributed more than $107 million to the region. Created by the McKnight Foundation in 1986 as one of six regional funds to respond to community needs through grants and business financing programs, SWIF shares its resources to support renewable energy, child care and more. The 25-member SWIF staff also administers 31 community foundations and more than 120 other funds to help local donors and volunteers support work close to home.

Anderson sees SWIF’s role as both a “connector” and convenor” to the region’s 280,000 residents. “We listen to community needs and connect people with the partners and resources they need to move forward,” she says.

“Shoveling out,” she explains with a mildly amused look, includes shuffling through more than 40,000 old emails and saving only those of vital importance. Many of those emails were sent by people she will see at a retirement reception hosted in her honor Jan. 19 at Crow River Winery.

And then there’s the most critical task — handing off the leadership reins to her successor, Scott Marquardt, SWIF’s sixth permanent executive leader. Following a nationwide search led by a recruitment firm, SWIF’s 11-member governing board selected Marquardt, the current senior vice president, “with a lot of confidence,” Anderson notes.

“I think they made a fabulous decision to promote Scott from within,” she says. “That allows me to step away knowing that the foundation is in fabulous hands (with a) great board, great new leaders, somebody who knows the region, and somebody that the staff knows and trusts so I can go in peace.”

Going in peace is a triumph, considering how the COVID pandemic of the past three years presented the foundation with one monstrous challenge after another. SWIF staff worked tirelessly during that period to deliver millions of dollars in philanthropic and government money to save hundreds of rural jobs and businesses, and ensure working families had child care.

Other rural development agencies credit Anderson’s leadership for forging SWIF into a model they aim to emulate. They laud her for her vision and inclusive skills, which strived to make southwest Minnesota’s communities more welcoming to people of diverse backgrounds, and supportive of families with young children.

Her legacy is Grow Our Own, a 10-year endeavor now in its sixth year. The aim: align resources, build momentum and close the opportunity gap for kids by investing in the people and systems that surround them. The opportunity gap? It’s anything that prevents children’s ability to reach their full potential.

With one in six children in the region living in poverty, and racial diversity increasing, Anderson sees Grow Our Own as an economic and moral imperative. “We need to ensure all our kids — our indigenous children, our seventh-generation immigrant children, and our first-generation immigrant children — get the best possible start to life,” she told a Granite Falls audience a few years ago. “… We’re supporting all our southwest Minnesota kids because it’s simply the right thing to do.”

Grow Our Own is a culmination of all that is dear to Anderson. She loves kids — she has two adult sons, and two grandchildren. She has rural roots — her hometown is Lemmon, South Dakota. She knows the trials and rewards of farming — her husband, John Anderson, tenaciously hung onto their farm during the farm crisis of the 1980s while also working a daytime job. She knows how to pull resources together — she joined SWIF in 2001 as development director before leaving Canby for Hutchinson in 2007 to take on the role of chief operating officer.

“Diana cares deeply about all the people who live and work in the -county region of southwest Minnesota,” said Christie Hantge, a seven-year member of SWIF’s governing board who will assume the chair’s position July 1.

Hantge uses descriptors such as “courageous,” “thoughtful” and “humble boldness” to describe Anderson’s leadership style.

“She has the ability to facilitate open discussions about difficult, complex and emotional issues without making anyone feel like their opinion or position is wrong, while at the same time getting people to see things from different perspectives and building consensus,” Hantge said.

John Anderson says his wife has the uncanny ability to talk to anyone about anything, whether she’s in a work meeting, at church, or traveling with him while on vacation in Europe.

“I think one of her strong attributes is that she is just so down to earth with people,” he said. “She can relate to almost anything people are talking about.”

When Anderson took the helm of the SWIF, the seeds of Grow Our Own were already on her radar. That vision meshed well with the governing board’s direction, including the interests of Hantge, whose college master’s thesis examined concepts of the American Dream. Hantge says she “felt an instant connection” when Anderson presented SWIF’s governing board with a book titled “Our Kids,” by Harvard University political scientist Robert Putnam. Putnam would later be the keynote speaker at an all-day summit that introduced Grow Our Own in Marshall.

Grow Our Own’s 10-year strategy is based on a five-part “cradle to career” framework: strong and healthy families, high-quality early care and education, K-12 engagement both in and out of school, vibrant and welcoming communities, and career pathways.

Responding to those five areas, SWIF has:

• launched the Employer Resource Network to support success in the workplace — which benefits both the employer and the employee. “Stable work is key to family economic success,” Anderson said.

• addressed the region’s child-care crisis.

• supported youth and children’s mental health through grants and partnerships with schools and frontline agencies.

• encouraged and supported Welcoming Week and Welcoming Communities work to create communities where all residents feel a deep sense of belonging.

• continued business finance investment to help the economies in communities stay strong.

• made investments in career pathways programs, such as Hutchinson Public Schools’ TigerPath Academies, which get kids connected to the great job opportunities in their own communities.

Pandemic’s impact

Little did Anderson — or anyone know in early 2020 that the carefully designed Grow Our Own strategy would collide with a once-in-a-century pandemic. SWIF was set up for the challenge. Its emergency response followed a request from St. Paul.

“The governor’s office reached out to the six Minnesota initiative foundations and asked if we could work with them to get relief to our child-care providers in an effort to preserve as many of them as we could,” Anderson recalls. “And, you know, we closed the office on March 17. I think that was the day that everybody took their laptop home. And Wednesday morning, all of us plugged in at home and fired things up. And within a few days, we were working on getting over a million dollars in grants out to child-care providers. Wow.”

In the end, the crisis made SWIF’s commitment to fighting childhood poverty even stronger. Over the following months, SWIF sent more than $24 million in state, federal and philanthropic funds to help schools, child-care centers and other agencies continue their work.

The effort resembled a similar response 12 years earlier, when SWIF sent out emergency aid during the 2008 recession. Anderson describes that response as a “dress rehearsal” for the crisis that followed a dozen years later.

“It was tragedy-triumph-tragedy. But we figured it out,” Anderson said. “And I think this just speaks to this incredible team, their resilience, their determination, their incredibly hard work. Those were often really long days without any knowledge that this was going to be over soon. And obviously it wasn’t.”

Anderson spoke to the Leader about her career and her work to strengthen southwest Minnesota.

Eight years ago, when you took the helm at SWIF, you received emails and cards congratulating you on your appointment. You said at the time that you’d put all those well wishes into an archive so when the going got tough, you could look back. You called it your “energy pack.” Have you used that “energy pack” much?

These past several months have been the bookend to those initial cards and well-wishes. I’m hearing from many of those same people to wish me well for this next chapter. I have the cards and notes, but I didn’t pull them out and read them again as I thought I might. Instead, collectively they served to redirect my inner voice when it started to go to that place of self-doubt. I could reach back in my mental archive … actually more like my heart archive … and draw on those encouraging sentiments from people who genuinely care. And that’s the key — in any position of leadership, you will never please everyone. You have to decide whose opinion matters because your values align with theirs and you know they have your back. Those are the people in my “energy pack” and just knowing that they would support me — even if they didn’t like my decisions made all the difference when the going got tough.

You’ve been with the Foundation for 22 years. You’ve worn a lot of hats during the past seven years. What did your worst days look like? And what happened on your best days?

The Great Recession in 2008 was like a practice run for the pandemic. It reminded us that the Foundation was born out of crisis when the ag economy crashed in the early 1980s. We had to set aside long-term priorities and focus on immediate relief to relieve human suffering which was a phrase from our original mission statement in 1986. It was March 17, 2020 … we made the decision to close the office and work remotely until we better understood the risks of this new virus. We didn’t know that the impact would last for years. The worst days were realizing how people in our communities were hurting — like those early days of the pandemic. It wasn’t just an economic crisis, but a health crisis as well. We were able to respond almost immediately with support to our child-care providers who were hit hard. And, because of our reputation as a connector, support from outside the region began to flow through SWIF. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been able to distribute more than $24 million in grants and loans to businesses, organizations, schools and communities to help get through difficult times.

The best days are when you see the power of deep and trusted relationships make it possible to do just about anything. Even during the pandemic — watching our team mobilize to provide relief as fast as possible. Seeing how people came together in communities like Worthington to support workers who were hard hit by COVID. Seeing communities come together to tackle hard problems, like homelessness. Seeing new businesses open on Main Street because multiple partners came together to make it possible. I am blessed to see the power of relationships almost daily.

SWIF is now in the second half of its 10-year Grow Our Own, a commitment to closing the opportunity gap for kids and their families. Are you on track?

Our roles in Grow Our Own are to be a champion, a regional voice, a catalyst … things that can spark systems change over time. We understood that the opportunity gap would not be completely closed in 10 years, but that we would stay at the table in that unique role that only a community foundation can play for at least 10 years. We dedicated the first three years — 2016-2019 — to creating awareness of the opportunity gap. Making sure that people understood what the opportunity gap looked like in their community and that the Foundation could be a partner and resource for local initiatives to close it.

The pandemic hit just as we were moving into the next phase of moving from awareness to action. We shifted from the long-term approach of systems change to the immediate needs of kids and families. I just learned the story of a young individual who was able to maintain stable housing during the pandemic because of a grant we provided. Think of the impact that has today as this person rebuilds their life after the pandemic. They aren’t recovering from a period of homelessness … they are right at the starting line and ready to go.

So now, we are thinking about how we seize this window of opportunity where the previous systems that have been disrupted by the pandemic have the potential to be put back together in more inclusive ways. During the pandemic, we learned so much about the sometimes-hidden needs of kids and families. What role can the Foundation play in taking those lessons learned and supporting communities in addressing them for the long haul.

Southwest Minnesota is seeing fewer families with children younger than 6 living in poverty. How much of this might you attribute to the efforts of Grow Our Own?

Grow Our Own helped mitigate the impact of the pandemic on businesses and nonprofits across the region. That’s no small thing!

When you are working on such a complex issue, I don’t know that you can ever say with certainty that the Foundation owns so much of the progress. We can certainly point to success in keeping people in the workforce through loans to businesses and the success of our Employer Resource Network pilot. We can point to career pathway programs that we have funded as getting young people connected to good paying jobs, we can lift up our incredible partners like the community action councils that are helping people move out of poverty and the small role we play through our partnership and funding … and some of it is the economy. The tight labor market has driven up wages — families are earning more. Some of it is public policy … the child tax credit that was part of the American Rescue Plan led to a significant reduction in child poverty, keeping an estimated 3.7 million children nationwide out of poverty in December 2021.

Southwest Minnesota is in transition. It’s growing more diverse and it’s losing population. How do you see these two factors shaping the region’s future?

We recently had a chance to share our work with a group of community foundations from across the country. When we look at the demographic changes, we see that the growth in young people in our region is tied to more children and young adults of color calling southwest Minnesota home. Their parents came to the area looking for good jobs and safe places to raise their children … and now they are growing their families and putting down roots. With our tight labor market and the increasing number of people my age who are retiring early, it will be even more important to create welcoming communities for our newcomers and to ensure their children have every opportunity to reach their full potential. I was just visiting with leaders from other regional organizations about the intersection of the gray tsunami of retirees and the need to train the next generation of healthcare workers to care for us. Many of the young caregivers will look different than I do. They will be young men and women of color. It is in my own best interest to welcome everyone to my community and work to create a place where people of all races, ethnicities and backgrounds feel at home.

Of course, we want the young people whose families have lived in southwest Minnesota for many generations to return home, and there are heartwarming stories of young families doing just that. But with an unemployment rate hovering at around 2% right now, those “homecomers” will never be able to fill the gap alone.

What do you say when people talk about Minnesota’s “rural-urban divide”?

I say there is more that unites us than divides us. I recently heard Adair Mosely, the incoming executive director of the African American Leadership Forum speak. He has dedicated his life’s work to community building in north Minneapolis. He talked about the community-led effort to bring a grocery store to the neighborhood. The model is replicable whether it is in north Minneapolis or a small rural community that lost its hometown grocery store. He said, “Rural white and urban black have so much in common.” The negative narratives divide us, but both are experiencing the same type of disinvestment. From public funds for infrastructure to access to capital for business growth, core urban neighborhoods and rural communities do not receive the same level of investment as more affluent areas.

And it creates a scarcity mindset that naturally pits people against each other. If the metro gets something, rural loses and vice versa. The Foundation has always approached our work from an asset-base perspective. What are the local assets that we can build upon? An abundance mindset changes the conversation from competition to collaboration.

Do people outside SWIF’s -county region understand its uniqueness?

I hear it all the time — when my urban colleagues come to visit, they are blown away by the entrepreneurial spirit that is evident in every community as well as the spirit of collaboration. People come together to get things done because that’s what it takes in small communities. There is a level of volunteerism and community engagement that they don’t see in the metro. And they are blown away by the people! Spending time with the remarkable people in our region dispels the divisive myths of the rural/urban divide. Rural is not a monolith. Every region and every community is unique. When people outside our region get to experience that, it changes their hearts for good.

What is southwest Minnesota’s best-kept secret?

The diversity of the landscape, the diversity of our communities, the hidden gems in almost every community that are worth seeing. The amenities that compare to metropolitan communities coupled with the sense of community that comes from knowing your neighbors.

What is the greatest challenge for the Foundation as you leave?

Managing the continued tension between addressing immediate needs and looking further out into the future … something we are well-positioned to do.

You’ve been in Hutchinson since 2007. Are you and John going to stay?

We are we are planning to be closer to our grandchildren … but we’re not going anywhere yet. We’ve got so many things to do in our home before we would offer it up for sale and lots of things to pack up.

What might your retirement plans look like? Pickleball and sunny days in the park with your grandkids, consulting and meetings, a combination of all those, or something else?

We have a camper. We’re really looking forward to doing some camping. And I think we’ll do camping close to where the kids are so that they can come with us. We love the Minnesota state park system.

I hadn’t at first thought about doing consulting but I’ve had a few colleagues inquire. And so I realized that if I’m interested in doing that, I can’t wait too long right or you become kind of irrelevant or out of sight out of mind. So I hope to have a clearer sense of what that could look like probably in February. I will have a few conversations with folks about what that could look like but it will not be a full-time job. It would be where I really have something to contribute. And it would really be focused on rural and rural bridge building. I think that’s what I have to offer. How do we bring communities together around an aspirational vision of what we can all do together?

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.