Website: projectoptimist.us

Twitter: @MnTheoptimist

Project Optimist strives to engage residents of greater Minnesota to help them collaborate across common divides, tackle seemingly intractable problems and grow more optimistic about the future of their communities, region and world. Through solutions journalism, Project Optimist works to re-engage people burned out on news or withdrawn from civic life.

Founder of the digital news organization, Nora Hertel, is an investigative reporter and her work has been published across the Midwest by USA TODAY, The Associated Press, the Star Tribune, Minnesota Public Radio and, of course, the St. Cloud Times where she worked from 2017 to 2021. Nora even reported a series on natural climate solutions for the St. Cloud Times as a journalism fellow with the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative.