Audubon Minnesota, working with a committee of several partnership organizations, successfully secured a major state appropriation from the Minnesota Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund, as recommended by the Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCCMR), to launch the atlas.  With additional generous support provided by Audubon Minnesota, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the Minnesota Ornithologists’ Union, the Natural Resources Research Institute of the University of Minnesota-Duluth, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, preparatory work began in 2008 and the atlas officially began in 2009. Data collection was completed at the end of the 2013 breeding season.  From the fall of 2013 through the fall of 2017, data collected by nearly 700 volunteers, paid survey staff, and numerous resource organizations was compiled, analyzed and summarized.

A breeding bird atlas is a comprehensive, systematic field survey of the occurrence and breeding status of breeding birds, conducted by citizen scientists during a limited time period. Hundreds, sometimes more than a thousand volunteers, both professional and amateur, watch and record breeding evidence for birds in selected survey areas. The data collected by these volunteer surveyors provide the information used to create maps that describe which species breed in the state and where in the state they breed. Although the project lasts from 5-6 years, it is still considered a ‘snap-shot’ in time because it is conducted during a limited number of breeding seasons and it is not based on historical information.