Announcing a Bold Experiment and TOC

Some of the widest gaps between people’s perspectives tend to be disagreements about whether we have limited resources that should be controlled by some, or whether we are capable of collaboration in providing mutual aid for all. I believe we are all choosing on a spectrum, regardless of political affiliation or faith; it is not a binary one-or-the-other. I also believe we can nudge people into gradations of cooperation if we start off in the right place.

In this month’s magazine, we learn from several people about the ways that cooperation, collaboration, and new collective experiences have energized their lives. We also announce a new intention for the future of this magazine.

In 2020, during the pandemic and after George Floyd’s murder by police, Minnesota Women’s Press started transforming into a more responsive media platform that reflects the mutual aid and perspectives needed in the moment. We added the term “ecolution” to our vocabulary — our own invention, reflecting the ways local economies and ecosystems are being restored and revitalized, largely by women. We started building Changemakers Alliance, with its own weekly newsletter, to share these new online stories. And more recently, we created the Badass membership, so readers can support content and conversations alongside underwriters who care about our sustained attention to major community issues: transforming justice, age- and gender-based trauma, housing, caregiving gaps, and ecofeminism.

Continuing our pioneering spirit, in September we will offer a somewhat larger publication that is distributed once every two months. This will give our evolving statewide team more time to develop the funding and content from new “CALL Connect” discussion guides that hosts will use to convene conversation circles around Minnesota.

Thanks to grants from Press Forward Minnesota and the national Lenfest Institute for Journalism, we are generating prompt questions for key articles we have published. Neighbors, colleagues, family, and friends can choose to discuss these topics together from personal (rather than political) perspectives. We will collect reports from some of these discussions to fuel future stories, which will in turn launch additional conversations.

In 2026, we will publish deep dives about these key topics, as well as reflections that are shared with us from the conversations. There is risk involved — it reduces our revenue from monthly print advertising — but we are betting on increased support from statewide readers. If successful, this will lead to an even more bold experiment in 2027, which you will read about in this issue.

Our responsibility as a media platform is to showcase the best of who we are, what we want to build, and how we work to do it together.

“I can promise you that women working together — linked, informed, and educated — can bring peace and prosperity to this forsaken planet.”

— Isabel Allende

Money & Business — Imagining a Potential Co-op Future

Ecolution — Why I Have Built My Life Around Co-op Culture

Adventure — Susan Raffo: Listening to America’s People and the Land

Gender-Based Violence — Addressing Violence in a Collective Way

Healing — Team Care Is Self-Care at Our Nonprofit

Sports — Dodgeball Is Not Just for Gym Class

Thoughts — Values in a Rural Town

Buy Local — Navigating the Divide