Prairie Home Companion recently celebrated its 40th Anniversary with special events and a national broadcast at Macalester College. The program has grown successfully since its first broadcast which included an audience of very few people four decades ago. I did not have tickets for the two evenings of performances, but I sat just outside the fence, with a decent view of the stage and the ability to hear all that occurred.

I wondered: What ingredients make for the success of a program (radio or other), or for the success of an initiative, or for the success of any organization, for-profit, government, or nonprofit? What lessons might Prairie Home Companion have for Wilder Research? How could those lessons help us in our continuous effort to improve and increase our impact on the community? What parallels exist between the development of this radio program and the development of Wilder Research which grew from... 

Conversation is the First Step

In 2013, Wilder adopted a strategic priority to improve community health and well-being in low-income neighborhoods. As part of this effort, the Twin Cities Mobile Market was established. Twin Cities Mobile Market is a grocery store on wheels that brings affordable, healthy food directly into under-resourced neighborhoods. It fills a gap between food shelves and full-service supermarkets by providing a wide selection of fresh foods at below-market prices.

Watch Leah Driscoll, Twin Cities Mobile Market Program Manager, on Comcast Newsmakers as she discusses the latest updates

Minnesota Crime Rate Drops to Lowest Point in Two Decades
The latest featured trend on Minnesota Compass looks at the declining crime rate in our state. Serious crime, which includes reported property and violent crime, has plummeted since 1990. The number of property crimes, which accounts for more than 90 percent of serious crime, has declined by 43 percent, while violent crime has declined by 21 percent. 

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