We’re thoroughly energized from over 6 weeks of travel this year. It’s almost March, and we’re back in the office, which means the deadline (March 2 at 3:59 PM EST) to submit your application for the National Creative Placemaking Fund is nearly upon us! So far, we’ve received over 3,000 new registrations from eager applicants. In part, we were able to build excitement around the program through our extensive outreach in the fall of 2015 and early winter of 2016 that we decided to create a map so we could visualize the places we visited most recently. We’re grateful to the incredible partners who hosted us at our outreach information sessions, and we thank all of you who attended!
After you submit your application on March 2, we will embark on an extensive review process with 48 external readers. The next time you’ll hear from us will be in early June when we plan to notify applicants whether or not they have been selected to submit a full proposal. Unfortunately, because of limited bandwidth (our program is a small staff of two!) Leila and I will not be able to provide feedback on individual applications. Instead, we are brainstorming ways to share out useful information after the review process has come to a close.
After March 2, we’ll also be sending out a survey to request your feedback on our application process and hope you will take the time to provide us with your thoughts. At that time, if you have suggestions, by all means send them our way.
We’re excited by the overwhelming response to this opportunity, and can’t wait to learn about all the great work taking place across the country!