Four Questions with Jim Hoolihan
In 2004, Jim Hoolihan was named president and CEO of the Blandin Foundation, Minnesota’s largest rural-focused foundation, based in Grand Rapids. Founded in 1941 by Blandin Paper Co. entrepreneur Charles K. Blandin, the foundation’s goal was to strengthen rural Minnesota communities, with a particular focus on the Grand Rapids area. Over the years, the Blandin Foundation has held true to its mission. Between 2003 and 2007, 71 percent of its grants were awarded to nonprofits in the Grand Rapids and Itasca area. A Grand Rapids native, Hoolihan had been on the foundation’s board since 1992 and also served as the city’s mayor from 1990 until 1995. Previously, Hoolihan was president of Industrial Lubricant Company and Can-Jer, his family-owned industrial supplies and services company.
How has your private-sector experience informed your view of rural Minnesota’s economic development?
Being part of a rural-based enterprise—in my case product distribution and service to the mining, transportation and papermaking sectors—really highlights the importance of healthy communities, which reach far beyond economic development. In healthy communities, business, government, education, religious centers, healthcare and human services are interrelated and interdependent. Everyone, in every facet of the community, is responsible for helping set community priorities and preparing the community to face future challenges and opportunities. I think the Blandin Foundation vision statement captures this spirit well: healthy rural communities grounded in strong economies where the burdens and benefits are widely shared.
Blandin’s Community Leadership Program has been called one of the best leadership development programs in the country. What makes it unique?
The diversity of participants’ personal and professional backgrounds is incredible. It is always a group of 24 people from many different sectors of the same community: government, business, and senior and emerging leaders. Afterward, what we hear from so many people, which always makes me smile, are statements such as, “Before I came to the leadership group, I knew the folks that I work with every day, but I didn’t know the mayor,” or, “I didn’t know a chamber of commerce person. By Friday, I was calling him by his first name.”
The Blandin Foundation recently awarded a $250,000 grant over three years to the BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota. Why bio-business?
We think there’s a role for forest biomass harvesting in meeting the state’s new renewable energy targets. The state has said our energy sector needs to be 25 percent renewable by 2025. Forestry biomass will be a significant part of that. The BioBusiness Alliance grant is one way to help toward that solution. Doing forest biomass development and management right is another way to ensure that all of Minnesota’s forests can meet the needs of different parties and can continue to thrive, because forestry resources will continue to be needed for paper-making and lumber as well as for energy.
How do you measure the success of the Blandin Foundation’s efforts?
In some cases, we develop tangible, quantitative assessments. For example, we committed in 2005 to a 10-year, $1.5 million early childhood initiative in the Itasca County area, called Invest Early. We work with the Wilder Foundation to provide hard data about the effectiveness and progress of that program. We also know we’re making a difference when we listen to people’s stories—about the YMCA they brought to reality, the school board referendum that was passed, keeping a hospital in town. When we hear others tell their stories, and not just their accomplishments, but their challenges as well, we’re confident we’re helping them make a difference. So our success is measured both in stories and in data.