What if the grant application is the thing standing between a small town and the money it needs? Megan Langley of StrengthenND asked that, then scrapped the application entirely.

This episode of Tellwell: The Podcast is a working session on rural philanthropy and what it takes to move resources into communities the funding system skips. Megan leads StrengthenND, a North Dakota organization supporting smaller communities through grant making, an incubator farm, local foods work, and a People Power AmeriCorps program. She makes the case for community-owned capital, trust-based grant making, and systems change that starts with one small lever. If you raise money for a mission, fund other people's work, or fight for a town most maps ignore, this one is for you. 🌾

Ask yourself:

📌 Does your grant process reward good writing more than good ideas?
 📌 Are you funding the prettiest brochure, or the org closest to the problem?
 📌 When a project changes mid-grant, can your grantee call you, or are they stuck to a promise from nine months ago?
 📌 Who in your community gets left out before they ever hit submit?

By the end, you'll know how to:

• Rethink the grant application as a barrier instead of a default
• Design funding that lets a town of 150 compete with a fifteen-million-dollar org
• Build trust-based relationships that survive a change in scope
• Find the one lever of change worth pushing in a community
• Structure community-owned capital that treats a town like an entrepreneur
• Spot the difference between efficiency fixes downstream and systems change upstream
• Lead like a builder when tearing things down would be easier

Key Quote Highlights:

”What's that one lever that we could push to make things easier for everybody, to make it more equitable for everybody? Get rid of a grant application.”

”It doesn't matter what you've done in the past. We're just gonna have to try. Everything is figureoutable.”

Guest Bio:

Megan Langley leads StrengthenND from a farm outside Souris, in a community of about 35 people. She started at the Minot Area Community Foundation, where she kept a dream book of ideas the system was not ready for yet. Today she runs grant making and rural development across the state, including the Creative Community Solutions program that has funded 44 of 45 projects by getting to the root of what people actually need. Learn more at strengthennd.com

⏱ Timestamps (estimated, verify against the final edit):

00:00 Meeting in Williston and why rural gets overlooked
 04:11 Why rural is a choice worth defending
 07:09 The dream book and parking ideas that are not ready
 11:09 Finding the one lever of change in a community
 12:16 Killing the grant application and what changed
 17:08 A 44 of 45 success rate and why trust beats brochures
 21:05 The rooster, the wiffle ball bat, and figureoutable

📌 Resources Mentioned:

• StrengthenND: strengthennd.com
• Creative Community Solutions grant program
• Cheyenne Grit, the community-owned financing pilot in Cheyenne, ND
• Northwest North Dakota Community Foundation
• Minot Area Community Foundation
• The Arnold Bezran Fund

🔔 Stay Connected:

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• Website: wetellwell.com
• Tellwell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/wetellwell/
• Max on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maxkringen

📣 About Tellwell: The Podcast:

Tellwell: The Podcast is a weekly show hosted by Max Kringen, founder of Tellwell Story Co. in Fargo, North Dakota. Every episode is a real conversation with the people building trust and belonging inside mission-driven work. You get honest talk and usable ideas that change how you show up for the people you serve.

#ruralphilanthropy #nonprofitleadership #grantmaking #northdakota #ruraldevelopment #communityfoundations #missiondriven