Mariia Zimmerman, Founder and Principal of MZ Strategies, LLC .

MZ Strategies, LLC is shuttering its windows for the next few years beginning April 22, 2022. It’s been such a privilege to work with so many incredible organizations, communities, and partners over the last 10 years. The reason for this big change though is a happy one as Founder and Principal, Mariia Zimmerman, has been asked to join the Biden-Harris Administration. More information will be forthcoming about what her new position will be, but it continues her commitment to inclusive, thriving and livable communities.

“Life is pure adventure and the sooner we realize that,
the quicker we will be able to treat life as art:
to bring all our energies to each encounter,
to remain flexible enough to notice and admit
when what we expected to happen did not happen.
We need to remember that we are created creative
and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.”

— Maya Angelou

Mariia started MZ Strategies in 2012 with the hope that her years of working at the intersection of policy and place, and across a myriad of community development issues would provide a useful lens to support local elected officials, government practitioners and community advocates in creating more thriving and inclusive communities. It has been an incredible journey to support so many people and places in trying to do just that!

It is a gift achieved through hard work and perseverance to start a new business and find success. It’s a blessing to work with so many stellar folks on such a wide variety of projects across a range of places. At times over the years as a project ends, I find myself humming a favorite song from the Broadway play, Wicked, “Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better. But because I knew you, I have been changed for good.” There are too many blessings to fully name, with many described in past blogs posts and the MZ Strategies project page, but here are a few projects, people and places that have left a deep impression and will inform the work ahead.

Special Thanks To The Following Partners on This Journey:

The Strong, Prosperous and Resilient Communities Challenge that long-time mentor, role model and champion Shelley Poticha launched in 2016 together with partners at the Low-Income Investment Fund, Enterprise Community Partners, and the Natural Resources Defense Council continued work started in the Obama administration through the Sustainable Communities Initiative and LadderSTEP programs. SPARCC believes in the deep value of cross-collaborative tables grounded and directed by community leaders working to implement projects that bridged racial justice, climate resiliency, and healthy livable communities. MZ Strategies was a SPARCC partner from the beginning providing policy support.

SPARCC partners gathered in October 2019 in Chicago to learn together and inspire one another. Little did we know how much the world was about to change. (Photo: SPARCC)

Over the last six years many assumptions were tested and forced to evolve through the wisdom, passion, and expertise that Black and Brown leaders working in their communities to address almost ceaseless challenges from cultural displacement and housing instability to the COVID-19 public health emergency, to persistent systemic racial injustices and police violence, to attacks on immigrant populations, and annual climate disasters. Against this all, local partners elevated and fought for Black and Brown joy, for dignity of the elders and the youth in their communities, for a forward-thinking vision of community wealth building that welcomed all while pushing no one out. I leave changed as a result and thank my friends Odetta, Roberto, Marly, Amari, Maggie, Deya, Lyric, Elizabeth, Melissa, Laura, Justin, Mia, Rabeya, Dr Erica, Jacky, Lesle’, Darryl, and so many others for proving time and again that love is stronger than hate.

D’Angelos Svenkeson and Denetrick Powers, founders of NEOO Partners with Tawanna Black, founder of the Center for Economic Inclusion (Photo: CEI)

My friends at the Center for Economic Inclusion and NEOO Partners who I had the pleasure to work with on a few different Minnesota projects as each organization was launching. Both organizations have bloomed over the past two years and are making important and necessary impacts that reverberate across the state and beyond. Each helped MZ Strategies to bloom as well and enabled me to try new things, grow a stronger backbone to stand up for racial equity in tackling policy and planning issues, and to recognize that when small businesses partner great things happen. That is especially the case when you have a client like Ramsey County whose elected leaders and senior staff embraced a different way of supporting their community members and developing an action plan. Tawanna Black, thank you for being such a gracious partner, especially during such a difficult time!

Several years back, Chuck Bean the Executive Director of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments reached out to engage MZ Strategies in local regional economic planning efforts. As an avid fan of regionalism, it was such a gift to be able to work in my own region. He and the staff at MWCOG show that even without a lot of regulatory authority or huge infrastructure budgets, regional planning agencies have incredible power they can choose to utilize and leverage through their convening tables. MWCOG was just one project where MZ Strategies got to dig into working on regional economic competitiveness broadly defined to include housing, quality of life, equity, and transportation. Much gratitude to other regional allies we worked with over the years at the National Association of Regional Councils, the National Association of Development Organizations, Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, Institute for Sustainable Communities, the American Planning Association and with dozens of regional practitioners in California, Denver, Minnesota, Chicago, Atlanta, Boston, Pennsylvania and beyond.

Virtual ETOD workshops convened by the City of Chicago, Elevated Chicago, Rudd Resources and MZ Strategies brought together a diverse set of partners to plan during the covid pandemic.

Mariia’s long career working on transit-oriented development (TOD) created an impetus for starting MZ Strategies. Indeed, TOD has remained a theme, but work evolved to take on broader housing, community development, and planning issues with increased focus on Equitable TOD (ETOD) projects which transformed our approach and values. Through it all, there is a strong belief in the value of transit and in the promise of walkable, transit-oriented communities. Yet, there is still so far to go to make transit, community development, economic opportunity, the natural environment, and politics work better in TOD communities for BIPOC people who live there and other long-time residents many of whom are low-income or have a disability. The pressures of gentrification, displacement, inadequate transit service, and an unjust economic system that in recent years has accelerated its view of housing as a commodity and not a human right all limit the promise of ETOD. Against this MZ Strategies has worked with partners like Elevated Chicago, the Purple Line Corridor Coalition, the Great Communities Collaborative, The Alliance, the Urban Land Institute, LISC, Enterprise Partners, and hometown heroes RVA Rapid Transit who have re-energized and recommitted our approach to ETOD.

This picture was taken in June 2012 on my first work trip to Minnesota. My oldest child was testing out the new bike share. They are now a sophomore in college. How time flies!

A final word of thanks to partners in philanthropy. MZ Strategies was founded as a one-woman shop that sought to work on multiple issues, in multiple places, and for multiple sectors. Inherent to this is the value of looking at the intersection of issues, of places and of people. Each holds hold power, but in different forms. MZ Strategies launched without a single client lined up. Within the first week though, I had the incredible fortune to be contacted by Lee Sheehy at the McKnight Foundation with whom I had briefly met through previous work with the Living Cities collaborative. Lee enabled me to work in my homestate of Minnesota. Over the last 10 years I have worked almost continuously in Minnesota with a range of clients on a host of incredible projects. Lee was the spark that made that happen.

I’ve benefited over the years from working with other funders, and so appreciate the important role that philanthropy can play to invest in power building and systems change. My enormous gratitude to those who engaged with MZ Strategies and who themselves are trying to push philanthropy to do more to authentically address its own systemic racism.

Special thanks to a few key individuals: Amy Kenyon, Don Chen, Eric Muschler, Mark Constantine and Michael Smith, Lauren Bennett and Amanda Misiko Andere, Jeanne Fekade-Sellassie, Ben Starrett, Ann Fowler Wallace, and Margarita Parra who brought MZ Strategies in to work with local advocacy groups, provide technical assistance to local governments, and in some cases to provide strategic advice.

And now, onto a new adventure. Thanks for being along for the ride! More information will be provided on Mariia’s new position in the coming weeks.

As MZ Strategies wraps up and reflects on past and future, this poem by Dawna Markova resonates strongly and perhaps inspires you as well:

“I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.

I choose to inhabit my days,
To allow my living to open me,
To make me less afraid,
More accessible;
To loosen my heart

Until it becomes a wing,
A torch, a promise.

I choose to risk my significance,
To live so that which came to me as seed
Goes to the next as blossom,
And that which came to me as blossom,

Goes on as fruit.”

— Dawna Markova