Pollen’s editorial work through publishing feature stories in a bi-weekly newsletter has over fifteen years worth of content highlighting movers and shakers in the social sector across Minnesota and the Dakotas. Each one delved into complex societal issues, weaving together compelling narratives, art, and design. These stories shined a light on systemic challenges while offering practical avenues for change. By amplifying a variety of voices and perspectives, Pollen’s bi-monthly publishing fostered empathy and galvanized our audience to take meaningful action. Even when needing to shift to different business models and iterations of how Pollen brought in revenue, the feature stories page reflected a deep commitment to addressing societal inequities through human-centered articles with design treatments like no other.

This work changed narratives through long-form writing, art, and design about thorny topics that tip conversations into action.  The impact of this editorial work could be seen from the day they published as the stories were shared widely across social media platforms to now. Years later, they are just as relevant to the current news cycle regardless of what year they were published.

Every designer at Pollen loved these. No one told us what font to use. We got to make a new look and feel every time thanks to the standards set by Pollen’s Co-Founder and long-time Art Director and designer, Meg Lionel Murphy. We got to decide what creative teams we wanted to build and what type of look and feel paired well as we read through the story drafts. This part of Pollen’s work was always my absolute favorite. Addressing hard systemic problems through a human story, shining a light on what to hope for, ending with practical ways to take action, and making it look so good that people can’t help but read the entire thing.

Creative Direction and Design // Melanie Walby 
Project Management // Ruby Oluoch, Kenzie O’Keefe
Photography and Video // D.A. Bullock 
Editorial Director // Jerome Rankine 
Writer // Nyemadi Louise Dunbar

After the murder of George Floyd, Pillsbury United Communities and Pollen collaborated on this story series exploring policing, public safety, and a better path forward. The four-part story and video series covered community member’s opinions on reform, a deep dive into the city budget to show the gross disparities between what we spend on law enforcement in comparison to violence prevention, a spotlight on youth voices—those closest to some of these issues who have the most expertise and imaginative solutions and concludes with imagining what a healing response could actually look like. View project.

Design Director // Melanie Stovall 
Photographer // Brandon Werth
Editorial Director // Jerome Rankine 
Writer // Maya Beck

Sarah Bellamy has been part of the Penumbra Theatre Company family since childhood—from concessions worker, to 13-year-old actor, and now as artistic director. Through her leadership, Penumbra is erasing the divide between art and activism—advancing both their 40-year mission and the powerful legacy of the black theater movement. View Project.

Design Director // Melanie Stovall 
Illustration // Anne Ulku
Photographer // Sarah White 
Editorial Director // Jerome Rankine 
Writer // Courtney Algeo

Don’t be fooled by their warm and frequent laughter—the founders of The Coven are serious about creating an innovative, supportive, and inclusive space for women. Alex West Steinman, Bethany Iverson, Liz Giel, and Erinn Faith Farrell surveyed their professional landscape, found it lacking, and built something new. We took an up-close look at these social architects and their new creation—a response to the long-standing structures that have slowed and blocked professional advancement for women. View Project.

Design Director // Melanie Stovall 
Food Lettering // Ari Woeste
Editorial Director // Jerome Rankine 
Writers // Mo Perry and Quinton Skinner

Food assistance programs help families keep short-term financial issues from turning into long-term chaos. They help students perform better in school. They help kids and adults stay healthy, and they help seniors avoid costly medical issues. But a proposed $193 billion cut to food assistance funding would put more strain on an already strained system, and on families already struggling to keep everyone fed. With the help of Second Harvest Heartland, we look at our hunger epidemic, and the dangers of letting it get worse. View Project.

Design Director // Melanie Stovall 
Illustrations // Terresa Moses 
Photographer // Adja Gildersleve 
Editorial Director // Jerome Rankine 
Writer // Michael Kleber-Diggs

Though Me’Lea Connelly is walking what she calls “a beaten path,” it still feels new. The destination? Nothing less than black liberation. Me’Lea is the driving force behind the Association for Black Economic Power, a community organization working to launch a credit union in and for North Minneapolis. She responded to countless incidents of black pain with an idea. What if black communities exited systems that benefit from black pain? That requires building new systems, and Me’Lea has her tools at the ready. View Project.

Creative Direction and Design // Melanie Walby 
Editorial Director // Jerome Rankine
Illustration // Allegra Lockstadt
Writer // Erin Murphy

Sexual violence is pervasive in our society. This is not simply because of a few “bad apples.” It persists because of a culture and institutions that condone it. To Minnesota State Senator Erin Murphy, this means we have to think beyond punishing individual perpetrators. Real prevention means seeking institutional and cultural solutions. In her piece, Erin names consent education as one path to the cultural shifts we need to make. It’s rooted in bodily autonomy, a concept that extends into so many aspects of our lives. Exploring and challenging even the most seemingly trivial examples of touch without consent is central to reshaping our culture’s values around autonomy and safety. The price we pay for sexual violence, individually and collectively, is high. It’s our collective responsibility to prevent it. View project.

Creative Direction and Design // Melanie Walby 
Photography // Sarah White, Phyllis Wheatley Community Center
Video // Historic Films
Editorial Director // Jerome Rankine 
Writer // Michael Kleber-Diggs

T Williams has a message to share. Minnesota’s first-ever first prison Ombudsman, hired in response to the 1967 Plymouth Avenue riots, has lessons dating back to that tumultuous year — lessons that still hold value for us over 50 years later. If riots and unrest are symptoms of a larger, social illness, it’s one for which we still need a cure. To T, the remedy is structural, but also personal: “If we can change individual behavior, those changed individuals will go into their different groups and begin to make a difference,” he says. We should listen. View project.

Creative Direction and Design // Melanie Walby 
Illustration // Andrés Pérez, Brenda Tran, Meg Murphy
Writer // Melanie Walby 
Photography // Ryan Stopera
Editorial Director // Jerome Rankine 

How do you take care of yourself and others when everyone is stressed, everyone is traumatized, everyone is tired, and we’re all still working during a pandemic? In “A Letter to Our Artists,” Pollen invites us to reimagine how we work, even if that means saying no to projects that don’t feel right. In her letter, we are reminded that how the art is made—how we feel making it, how much we are paid, how we are treated—is all part of the art itself, and giving ourselves grace is a necessary step in imagining a new art-making practice. View project.

Creative Direction and Design // Melanie Walby 
Letterpress Art // Elana Schwartzman of Font Love Studio
Writer // Carin Mrotz
Editorial Director // Jerome Rankine 

Carin Mrotz knows all too well how antisemitic narratives lead to antisemitic violence. She also knows how pro-police narratives about and within the Jewish community shape discussions of safety in ways she sees as harmful. And yet, she has hope, because she also believes that together we can build new, healing, liberating narratives and with them, a better world. “What are we losing in pursuit of safety?” she asks. And what might we gain from new stories about safety? Our #ChangeTheStoryMSP series is all about telling new stories and shifting harmful narratives, and we’re proud to have Carin’s essay be a part of it. View project.

Creative Direction and Design // Melanie Walby 
Art and Story // Ricardo Levins Morales
Editorial Director // Jerome Rankine 

There’s a rhythm to change, sometimes. Patterns that repeat themselves, echoes from the past that reverberate into the present and influence the future. In the realm of public safety, that rhythm is often a pendulum swinging between calls for reform and calls for more police. Artist and organizer Ricardo Levins Morales writes about how this rhythm is playing out in Minneapolis’ efforts to reimagine public safety — the echoes from his life, the forces pushing against change now, the dangers of the backswing, and how we can get off the pendulum once and for all. View project.

Creative Direction and Design // Melanie Walby 
Painting // Ruthie Johnson
Writing // Neeraj Mehta
Editorial Director // Jerome Rankine 

There has been lots of talk of unity in US politics lately, which raises some questions: unity around what? and with whom? Like everything in our society, calls for unity are wrapped up in deep-seated racial hierarchies and historic injustices, and it’s no accident that many of those calling for unity have neither been particularly harmed by division nor would be giving much up for their vision of unity. Neeraj Mehta argues that what this nation needs most immediately is not unity, but justice. Unity would then, he writes, “be an outflow or byproduct of our country pursuing and achieving justice in visible and tangible ways.” View project.

Creative Direction and Design // Melanie Walby 
Photography // Ryan Stopera
Writing // Melissa Olson
Editorial Director // Jerome Rankine 

Mary Anne and Sergio Quiroz of Indigenous Roots see their life stories interwoven with the larger story of their St. Paul neighborhood. And though the Indigenous Roots Cultural Arts Center feels like an indelible part of that fabric, maintaining the center’s place in the community has meant Mary Anne and Sergio taking on more than a few challenges. View project.