Current and Recent Priorities

Recent neuroscience research has shown that 80% of the foundation of a child’s brain development occurs in the first 1000 days of life. These first three years impact a child’s health, learning, and executive function for the rest of their life.

There is not enough housing being built in the Twin Cities and existing housing is too expensive for many residents. This lack of housing affordability puts at risk the vitality and prosperity of the region and will make existing racial and economic gaps worse, and the COVID-19 pandemic has only made the need to act more urgent.

Nomination and application form for the 2026 Minnesota and national Young American Leaders Program (MYALP and YALP) will officially open on September 16th! Nominations will be taken through October 30th, and applications are due no later than November 20th. 

The Itasca Project has conducted several investigations into the return on investment in regional transit infrastructure, which it has found to be well over 2x in several scenarios. In 2010-2012, a task force sought to understand the expected economic return on regional transit investments in order to inform the regional conversation on transit expansion that was occurring at the time.