Executive Director
WIN Minnesota
Denise Cardinal is the Executive Director of WIN Minnesota, a state-based donor collaborative that has been operating in the North Star for over a decade. She has held several communications and political positions for various progressive candidates, causes, campaigns, and elected officials for more than 20 years. She was the Executive Director of ProgressNow, the network of communications-centered advocacy organizations, after founding and running the Minnesota affiliate – Alliance for a Better Minnesota – in 2007. Denise has also served as a Senior Press Officer for the National Education Association and as Press Secretary for U.S. Senator Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) after beginning her career as a newspaper reporter. She was on the board for the Minnesotans United for All Families, which was the first statewide campaign to beat back an anti-gay-marriage amendment in 2012, was on the board of the State Innovative Exchange, serves on the Minnesota Voice c3 table board, on the Advisory board for the Funders Committee for Civic Participation (FCCP). She is the first in her family to attend and graduate from college (Drake University), and lives in Saint Paul with her two kids, two cats and one brown rescue dog.
