Minnesota Anniversary Project (MAP 150)

This project is so immense, it warranted its own website. Find out more at www.map150.org or read on.

Get Involved

Take the civic involvement survey
Through the MAP 150 project, the Citizens League has been testing and carefully observing how citizen involvement processes work. An extensive literature search seems to verify much of what we are learning. (It also verifies that the Citizens League is on the cutting edge of understanding citizen involvement processes.) Please help us add to that understanding by taking a short survey online.

Two versions of the survey have been prepared -- one for the public, and one for public officials. The results will be tallied and compared and posted online at www.map150.org.

Your contribution is important -- please take a few minutes to complete this multiple choice survey -- and pass it on to others! Click here to read more and take the survey.

Enter the "I Am Minnesota's Future" video contest
The Citizens League is holding the contest to honor the 150th anniversary of Minnesota's statehood on May 11, 2008. The contest is designed to frame the next 150 years of statehood by providing teenagers the opportunity to express their concerns about the future of today's leaders. Prizes include a digital video camera, a $150 Best Buy gift card, and more. Click here to learn more.

Volunteer to help with the Minnesota Anniversary Project
MAP 150's goal is to improve Minnesota's problem-solving capacity by developing tools and process that place citizens more fully in the role of "co-producers" of the common good. MAP 150 is currently testing new tools and process through a series of demonstration projects. Click here to find out more about MAP 150 (you'll be taken to its own website) or here to learn more about how to get involved and to sign up.

What we do

The Citizens League's mission is to build civic capacity. Looking back, it's clear that many of Minnesota's most prized innovations had their home in the Citizens League: charter schools, the Minnesota Miracle, assisted living, and many more. These breakthroughs were achieved through its hallmark "study committee" process. This model of civic engagement certainly helped to achieve the Citizens League's mission, but the world changed in the 1990's as technology created vast new means of communication, replacing hierarchical systems with networks and open source technologies, giving whole new meaning and potential to "democratic processes." If the Citizens League is to continue to help Minnesota innovate, its methods too must change. So it has launched the Minnesota Anniversary Project to celebrate Minnesota's 150th Anniversary in 2008.

MAP 150's goal is to improve Minnesota's problem-solving capacity by developing tools and processes that place citizens more fully in the role of "co-producers" of the public good. It seeks to put into practice the "wisdom of crowds" in the public arena--processes virtually nonexistent in the public sector.

MAP 150 is currently testing new tools and processes for citizen involvement through a series of demonstration--or pilot--projects. These are:

  • Minnesota Property Tax Facts: What do Minnesotans really want to know about their property taxes? Here you weigh in and check out what other Minnesotans are saying.
  • Redistricting: With redistricting just around the corner in 2010, the possibility looms that Minnesota may lose a congressional district and be subject to a drastic change in districts. Citizens rarely have much of a role in the redistricting process...until now.
  • Students Speak Out: Schools across the board face a plethora of challenges. Students Speak Out is a place for students and adults to constructively dialogue about the causes and consequences of these issues, as well as to help create solutions.
  • CitiZing!: CitiZing! will be Minnesota's first web platform designed for citizens collaboration on public problems, aiming to become the online civic network for collective problem solving.

MAP 150 is exciting, fast-paced and innovative. Want to know more? Interested in helping out? Let us know! We're always looking for more wisdom to add to our crowd.