Over the first three weeks of October, the participating organizations of the Community Development Investments will hold community forums to introduce this program to local stakeholders. The events will be livestreamed below and we’ll update this page with recordings as they become available.
We recently launched our one-time Community Development Investments (CDI) program to invest a total of $18 million in six place-based organizations seeking to incorporate arts and cultural strategies into their core community development work. Each participating organization will receive $3 million over three years as well as technical assistance to support this effort.
As the program manager for CDI, I’m looking forward to hitting the road again with my colleagues, Jamie B. and Prentice, and having the opportunity to meet a wide variety of people in each of the six places.
Over the next three weeks, we’ll visit each participating organization to join them in a Community Forum that brings together local leaders, artists, and residents to highlight the importance of bridging the gap between arts, culture and comprehensive community planning and development. It is a chance to celebrate the CDI opportunity with existing stakeholders, introduce the organization to new stakeholders, and begin the process of developing a set of relationships around community development priorities that includes the arts sector as a key partner.
One thing we will not be doing at these forums is introducing specific project ideas. Creative placemaking is as much about process as it is about what is being produced. The forums are the beginning of a process by which each organization will get to know the world of potential arts and cultural partners and strategize around potential opportunities. We also know that it takes time for organizations to build up the internal capacity to take on new work.
At these forums, we will talk about the timelines that will allow each organization to be thoughtful and informed about how to deploy these resources locally, toward a goal of beginning to get projects off the ground around next summer.
Want to learn more? See below for more information about each event, and scroll to the bottom of this page to watch each forum live. We’ll update this post often with additional details in the lead-up to each forum, and also post recordings in case you can’t join real time. Join the conversation online at #ArtPlaceCDI.
Click on the organization names below to view videos from each forum:
- Cook Inlet Housing Authority (Anchorage, AK), a tribal housing authority that focuses on affordable housing development and broad neighborhood revitalization strategies
- Fairmount Park Conservancy (Philadelphia, PA), a public parks stewardship organization that champions the role parks play in strengthening civic life and economic development
- Jackson Medical Mall Foundation (Jackson, MS), an anchor health services facility that promotes local economic and community development opportunities with a health-based lens
- Little Tokyo Service Center (Los Angeles, CA), a neighborhood-based community development organization that focuses on affordable housing development, social services, and community organizing and planning
- Southwest Minnesota Housing Partnership (southwestern Minnesota), a rural community development corporation that engages in comprehensive housing and community development
- Zuni Youth Enrichment Project (Zuni Pueblo, NM), a youth development organization that promotes healthy lifestyles among Zuni youth and families