Ideas at work

Find initiatives and collaborations working on improving the environment and learn about effective strategies for action.

Initiatives and Collaborations

Center for Neighborhood Technology
Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) is a leader in promoting more livable and sustainable urban communities. CNT works at the intersection of environmental sustainability, social equity, and technology—with particular attention on creating efficient and affordable solutions for low-income communities and communities of color.

Energy and Environmental Research Center
A high-tech, nonprofit branch of the University of North Dakota, the EERC is one of the world’s leading developers of cleaner, more efficient energy and environmental technologies to protect and clean our air, water, and soil.

Eureka Recycling
One of the largest nonprofit recycles in the U.S. and a leader in demonstrating the best waste reduction and recycling practices not only for the Twin Cities metro area, but for the nation.

Habitat and Population Evaluation Team
HAPET works to provide biological decision support through regional conservation planning, develop and apply models that relate bird populations to their habitats, integrate continental avian conservation initiatives through landscape design, assess the impacts of habitat management on bird populations, and act as a liaison manager and researcher, insuring that management information needs are met and that research results are relevantly applied.

National Water Program
The goal of the National Water Program is to protect or improve water resources throughout the United States and its territories through research, education and extension efforts. The National Water Program has identified Drinking Water and Human Health as a theme on which to focus these efforts.

North Dakota Department of Health

North Dakota Division of Municipal Facilities
The Division of Municipal Facilities protects public health and the environment by ensuring that tap water is safe to drink and that wastewater is properly treated. To effectively provide public health and environmental services the Division is divided into three programs: the Clean Water State Revolving Loan Fund (CWSRF) Program, the Drinking Water Program (DWP), and the Drinking Water State Revolving Loan Fund (DWSRF) Program.
North Dakota Division of Water Quality
Water Quality is essential to public health, our natural environment, and economic development in North Dakota. The North Dakota Department of Health, Division of Water Quality works to protect and improve water quality for all uses. Programs within the Division deal with various aspects of protecting the quality of our water resources. Enforcement of state and federal environmental laws is accomplished through permitting, inspection, sampling, analytical services and monitoring activities.

North Dakota Game and Fish Department
The mission of the North Dakota Game and Fish Department is to protect, conserve and enhance fish and wildlife populations and their habitat for sustained public consumptive and nonconsumptive use.

North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department
The North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department aims to provide and enhance outdoor recreation opportunities through diverse parks and programs that conserve the states’ natural diversity.

North Dakota Partners for Fish and Wildlife
The North Dakota Partners Program is a voluntary private lands habitat restoration program that has goals that serve to enhance wildlife populations and the Fish and Service’s ability to fulfill its mission in other programs, particularly the National Wildlife Refuge System.

North Dakota State Water Commission
The State Water Commission provides effective management of North Dakota’s water resources and aims to improve the quality of life and to strengthen the economy of North Dakota by managing the water resources of the state for the benefit of its people.

Rocky Mountain Institute
RMI's style is non-adversarial and trans-ideological, emphasizing integrative design, advanced technologies, and mindful markets. Their mission is to transform global energy use to create a clean, prosperous, and secure low-carbon future.

Trust for Public Land
A national, nonprofit, land conservation organization that conserves land for people to enjoy as parks, community gardens, historic sites, rural lands, and other natural places, ensuring livable communities for generations to come.

Vision West ND
The Vision West ND project, which covers the 19 oil and gas producing counties in western North Dakota, is setting the stage for economic sustainability. Through strategic planning sessions, community leaders and citizens identify strategies most likely to succeed in their region. The primary goals of the project are to address immediate, short-term needs to meet growth management challenges and establish a diversified economy in the future through the development of local and regional strategic plans.

Access to Healthy food

American Community Gardening
The Mission of the American Community Gardening Association is to build community by increasing and enhancing community gardening and greening across the United States and Canada.

Community and Local Food Resources
University of Minnesota Extension Improves food literacy, physical activity, food safety, and health food access for Minnesotans and the food service industry.

Community Gardens in North Dakota
Community gardens are collaborative projects on shared open spaces where participants work together and share in the products of the garden. Locations of community gardens in ND:

Community gardens in Bismarck
Other ND community garden links
Hunger Free ND Garden Project
- Start a community garden in 8 easy steps

Conduent Community Health
Business services partner for companies and governments worldwide.

Creating a Hunger Free North Dakota Coalition
The Creating a Hunger Free North Dakota (CHFND) Coalition is a statewide network of organizations, agencies and individuals established to collectively identify and address the unmet food and hunger needs and their underlying causes. The Coalition works through advocacy, research, education and outreach to meet the vision of a hunger free North Dakota.

Farm to School
The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy provides the semester-long Farm to School Youth Leadership curriculum which is designed to empower high school students and engage them in meaningful, hands-on learning activities that also strengthen their school’s Farm to School program and link them directly with farmers in their community.

Food and Nutrition
North Dakota State University provides an array of information on food and nutrition including local foods, and the latest nutrition, food safety and health impact reports throughout North Dakota counties.

The Great Plains Food Bank
The Great Plains Food Bank is the largest hunger-relief organization in North Dakota with the mission to end hunger in North Dakota and western Minnesota through community partnerships. The Food Bank works with hundreds of food industry donors and charitable feeding programs, and thousands of volunteers and financial supporters towards creating hunger-free communities.

Let's Eat Local!
Let's Eat Local! is part of the Cass Clay Food Systems Initiative (CCFSI), which was started with the purpose to impact all levels of our community food system to assure that residents have access to safe, nutritious, and affordable foods.

The ND Dept. of Agriculture Local Food Initiative
The Department of Agriculture drives the local foods movement with great support and partnership from the North Dakota Farmers Market and Growers Association, the Farm to School initiative, specialty crop groups, and numerous rural communities, where it connects growers and producers directly with consumers.

The North Dakota Farmers Market and Growers Association
The North Dakota Farmers Market and Growers Association is a marketing organization that works towards building a farmers market program that connects producers and consumers, help producers and market managers develop marketing tools and strategies to ensure long term sustainability for rural North Dakota, and to increase consumer and producer awareness on the benefits of fresh, locally grown products.

The North Dakota Farm to School Program
The North Dakota Farm to School program connects schools with local food producers and increases learning about food production in the classroom. The three main areas of Farm to School are serving local foods in the school cafeteria, implementing school and youth gardens, and encouraging students to learn about the food system through in class activities and on-farm field trips.

PolicyLink. Improving Access to Healthy Food
PolicyLink is a center who integrates research and actions into policy initiatives to advocate for groundbreaking changes that enable everyone, especially people of color, to be economically secure, live in health communities of opportunity, and benefit from a just society.

Evidence based strategies

These websites identify proven strategies to address this topic area. Keep in mind that each source differs in their definition of what is "evidence-based" or "proven."

Health-evidence Canada
A registry of systematic reviews on the effectiveness of public health and health promotion interventions as well as some environmental health interventions. The mission is to make evidence easily accessible while developing organizational and individual capacity for evidence-informed public health decision making.

Conduent Community and Population Health Management
Healthy Communities Institute provides resources to identify at-risk populations and areas of need, implement evidence-based programs, create efficiencies through internal and community-based partnerships, and track and report measurable results in a compelling way.