Working Partners

Since the beginning of Artplace, partnerships with organizations that share our values and goals of creating healthy, equitable and sustainable communities and to help strengthen the field of creative placemaking have been critical to our success. The following is a list of our current working partners.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT - SECTORS

AGRICULTURE AND FOOD

DAISA Enterprises
In 2018, ArtPlace established a partnership with DAISA Enterprises to lead our food and agriculture sector research and working group effort. DAISA works at the nexus of food, health, economy and community, providing strategic and evaluation services and creating new programs and technologies to develop more equitable food systems. The working group, held in March 2019, was co-convened in partnership with Farm Credit Council and Rural Coalition.

COMMUNITY SAFETY

LISC
Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) has been our partner on our arts, culture and community safety research and field building work since they co-convened a working group with us in early 2016. Together, we commissioned Urban Institute to conduct four mixed-method, case study assessments that examine the role of arts and cultural strategies in achieving explicit community safety outcomes. The results of that study, Creative Placemaking and Community Safety, are being integrated into LISC Safety’s technical assistance and field training programs.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Common Future
In 2020, ArtPlace partnered with Common Future to develop a community-advised fund and field-building initiative in 2021. Common Future is a national intermediary and network of leaders dedicated to shifting capital into communities, uplifting local leaders, and accelerating the development of equitable economies. The fund will direct resources to transformative organizations within the Common Future network who are working at the intersection of arts, culture, and equitable economic development. The initiative will use these demonstration funds to help inform and support the growth of creative community wealth building.

ENVIRONMENT AND ENERGY

Grist
Recognizing a synergy between the arts and environment sectors, and hunger for more information at the level of individual activists and organizers to help make this intersection more visible, we established a publishing partnership with the leading environmental content publisher Grist.org.

Helicon Collaborative
In 2016, ArtPlace established a partnership with Helicon Collaborative to lead our environmental sector research and working group effort. Helicon works to help people across sectors engage the catalytic potential of artists and culture to drive social change and make communities more vital, sustainable and just. Helicon authored our arts, culture and environment field scan, Farther Faster Together: How Arts and Culture Can Accelerate Environmental Progress, and facilitated the working group, which was co-convened in partnership with Sierra Club and Grist.

The US Water Alliance
Following on our working group, we established a partnership with US Water Alliance because the prevalence of artists working on water-related issues was a key trend uncovered in the field scan research. This partnership led to the creation of a National Advisory Committee, research and creation of Advancing One Water Through Arts and Culture: A Blueprint for Action, and national and regional delegations of artists to attend the annual One Water Summits each year.

HEALTH

University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine
ArtPlace partnered with the University of Florida Center for Arts in Medicine to lead the arts and public health research, resource creation, and field building work over the next few years. This strategy includes multiple national convenings, outreach and engagement of practitioners in the writing of a pivotal resource in the field of public health and the arts.

HOUSING

Enterprise Community Partners
ArtPlace has supported Enterprise Community Partners, a leading national affordable housing developer, to expand their longstanding Rose Fellowship to include opportunities for community-based artists to be paired with local community development organizations for two year fellowships.

Neighborworks America
Through a partnership with Neighborworks America, a national intermediary focused on comprehensive approaches to affordable housing and community development, ArtPlace created the first ever creative placemaking course, Leveraging Arts and Culture for Affordable Housing and Equitable Community Development, for the NeighborWorks Training Institute (NTI). Offered three times each year in major U.S. cities, NTI training and certification offerings represent the very best in professional development for organizations working in comprehensive community development.

IMMIGRATION

Welcoming America
In 2018 ArtPlace launched a partnership with Welcoming America to advance our immigration sector research, resource creation, and field building activities. Welcoming America is a national non-profit, non-partisan organization that provides the roadmap and support communities need to become more welcoming toward immigrants and all residents. Welcoming America will co-convene a working group with ArtPlace and integrate arts-based tools and strategies into their national membership network, knowledge sharing, and peer learning programs.

TRANSPORTATION

Transportation For America (T4A)
Working with Transportation for America (T4A), a national alliance of leaders advocating for smart, homegrown, locally-driven transportation solutions, we published the field scan Arts, Culture and Transportation: A Creative Placemaking Field Scan. And together, in 2018, we helped conceptualize the first ever state level artist-in-residence in partnership with the Washington State Department of Transportation and the State Smart Transportation Initiative. A similar program launched at the Minnesota Department of Transportation in early 2019.

WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT

Jobs for the Future
In 2020, ArtPlace partnered with national workforce intermediary Jobs for the Future to co-convene the Arts, Culture, and Workforce Development working group.

NORC at the University of Chicago
In 2019, ArtPlace partnered with NORC at the University of Chicago to expand their research at the intersection of arts, culture and workforce development through dialogue and learning with practitioners. NORC is an objective, non-partisan research institution that delivers reliable data and rigorous analysis to guide critical programmatic, business, and policy decisions. NORC co-convened the workforce development working group, along with Jobs for the Future, and co-authored with ArtPlace a paper that summarizes insights from the working group dialogue, key trends in the workforce development sector, and the ways that arts and culture can influence workforce development.

LISC
In 2020, ArtPlace partnered to expand the Arts & Wealth Building Learning Lab, a peer cohort and systems-change initiative led by the Financial Stability and Creative Placemaking teams at Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). Many community-based cultural organizations are already doing significant workforce and economic development work, but are not directly supported in those fields nor is their work recognized by key metrics or funding. The Learning Lab directly responds to several key findings in ArtPlace’s workforce development research with NORC, and will create more fertile ground within the workforce sector to better leverage the arts.

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

Creative Generation
In 2020, ArtPlace America commissioned Creative Generation to conduct new research exploring the intersections of creative youth development, creative placemaking, and community development through community based, youth- and practitioner-led methods. Creative Generation was founded in 2019 to conduct pioneering research in the arts and cultural education field, guided by the relentless assertion that young creatives can change the world by catalyzing creative local solutions to global challenges.

The Loop Lab
In 2020, ArtPlace contracted The Loop Lab, a nonprofit social enterprise specializing in media arts internships and digital storytelling, to work alongside Creative Generation on youth-led, community-based research. Together with the young people involved in each program, they are creating videos that tell the story of nine place-based, youth-led creative projects that tackle complex global challenges on a local scale.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT - COMPREHENSIVE

Center For Performance & Civic Practice
ArtPlace worked closely with the Center for Performance and Civic Practice in the delivery of technical assistance to the Community Development Investments (CDI) program participants, including facilitating staff and board meetings; designing and leading public engagement sessions with diverse local stakeholders; and helping local artists think about their partnership and creative practices with these community development partners.

Federal Reserve Bank Of San Francisco
ArtPlace and PolicyLink jointly partnered with the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco to co-edit the September 2019 edition of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco’s Community Development Innovation Review on “Transforming Community Development through Arts & Culture”, which highlights the lessons, responses, and implications for the field from ArtPlace’s Community Development Investments program.

National Alliance of Community Economic Development Associations
ArtPlace supported the National Alliance of Community Economic Development Associations (NACEDA) in partnership with Americans for the Arts to analyze the state enabling environment for creative placemaking in three states (Minnesota, New Jersey, and Texas) as a way to explore the public policies, financial resources, relationships, and capacity development necessary for creative placemaking to flourish.

People & Places Conference 2019
ArtPlace supported the People & Places Conference in 2019, a joint collaboration of the National Alliance of Community Economic Development Associations, the National Alliance of Latino Community Asset Builders, the National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development, and the National Urban League, to integrate arts & culture, racial equity, and organizational change lessons from ArtPlace’s Community Development Investments Program into the conference program.

PolicyLink
ArtPlace America selected PolicyLink in 2015 to lead the research and documentation components of the Community Development Investments (CDI) program. As a consulting partner to ArtPlace, PolicyLink worked collaboratively with staff, partners, and CDI participants to harvest the knowledge gained, lessons learned, and impacts observed when arts and cultural strategies are deployed in service of comprehensive community development and planning. The products of this work can all be found at communitydevelopment.art.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Civic Arts
ArtPlace partnered with Civic Arts to launch a research inquiry into the intersection of local government and creative placemaking and then identify and manage key partnerships to advance the work. These partnerships included working with the International City/County Management Association and Engaging Local Government Leaders to lead new research, resources, trainings, and content to advance local government creative placemaking practice. ArtPlace also supported Civic Arts to develop a new creative placemaking resources hub for local government staff.

Engaging Local Government Leaders (ELGL)
ArtPlace and Civic Arts partnered with ELGL to develop a series of blogs, podcasts, webinars, and training cohorts to advance creative placemaking practice among ELGL members. This content can be found in ELGL’s Creative Community hub and also as a part of the Civic Arts Library.

International City/County Management Association (ICMA)
ArtPlace and Civic Arts partnered with ICMA and a body of external advisors to develop and share “Problem-Solving through Arts and Culture Strategies: A Creative Placemaking Wayfinding Guide for Local Government Managers,” released in December 2020.

CONVENING AND STORYTELLING

Forecast
We have invested in Forecast as an organization that is advancing storytelling for the field of creative placemaking. Forecast’s robust training, education and consulting practices help advance healthy, equitable and sustainable communities. Recognizing a synergy between the arts and environment sectors, and hunger for more information at the level of individual activists and organizers to help make this intersection more visible, we established a publishing partnership with the leading environmental content publisher

National Consortium for Creative Placemaking
To make the work of creative placemaking visible and legible we started organizing highly successful convenings all around the country with our partners at the National Consortium for Creative Placemaking (NCCP) These ‘Leadership Summits’ bring together creative placemaking practitioners from around the country.

HIGHER EDUCATION

Arizona State University - Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts
To create concentrations and minors for multiple degree programs, as well as the case studies, learning modules, and original research that will be required
The Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts (HIDA) at Arizona State University, an Hispanic-Serving Institution, is further integrating creative placemaking into degree programs and other initiatives, enlisting partners across the university. The Studio for Creativity, Place and Equitable Communities (SCPEC), a collaboration between HIDA and the Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions and led by Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson, will create teaching resources, field-facing scholarship, and pedagogical support tools to advance equitable and ethical creative placemaking practice.

ArtPlace is also partnering with the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts at Arizona State University to create an on-line creative placemaking 101 course and a series of conversations on how higher education can contribute to the strength of the creative placemaking field.

Drexel University - Westphal College of Media Arts & Design
ArtPlace has commissioned Drexel University Westphal College of Media Arts & Design Department of Architecture Design and Urbanism to study how creative placemaking is funded. Illustrating the data through a variety of case studies, the analysis will draw on the budgets and fundraising activities of creative placemaking practitioners.

Maryland Institute College of Art
To create a sequence of both undergraduate and graduate courses in creative placemaking
Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is launching Creative Placemaking @ MICA (CP@M) to strengthen the field of creative placemaking. Educational approaches include certificates, learning cohorts, and courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels. CP@M will also support the institution’s creative placemaking work in its own community.

The New School - College of Performing Arts - Arts Management and Entrepreneurship Graduate Program
To develop a university-wide, graduate minor focused on the role artists can play in community planning and development
The College of Performing Arts (CoPA) will draw upon The New School’s significant academic resources and commitment to a more just, more beautiful, and better-designed world by developing a new graduate minor focused on the role artists can play in equitable community planning and development. Fostering cross-sector and interdisciplinary collaboration, the minor will be accessible to students across all graduate schools and programs.

University of Florida - College of the Arts - Center for Arts in Medicine
To edit a supplemental issue of Health Promotion Practice, a peer-reviewed publication of the Society of Public Health Education
The Center for Arts in Medicine at the University of Florida, an Emerging Hispanic-Serving Institution, has been exploring the intersections of arts and culture interventions with population-level public health concerns. Jill Sonke (a dancer, choreographer, and director of the Center) has been invited to guest edit a supplemental issue of Health Promotion Practice to include research articles organized around the five issues identified in the Creating Healthy Communities through Cross-sector Collaboration white paper (collective trauma, racism, social isolation and exclusion, mental health, and chronic disease).

University of Michigan - Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities
To create a comprehensive repository of articles, case studies, research papers, resources, and tools related to creative placemaking
The Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities (a2ru) is a partnership of 43 universities that are committed to ensuring institutional support for arts-integrative research, curricula, and practice at comprehensive universities. Building on a multi-year investigation into creative placemaking, a2ru will produce The Creative Placemaking Hub, a platform where all resource materials, including syllabi, journal articles, case studies, websites, white papers, origin documents, scholarly articles, landmark opinion pieces, toolkits, videos, and more will be available to the higher education community and beyond.

University of New Mexico - School of Architecture and Planning - Indigenous Design and Planning Institute
To create a learning exchange among Indigenous practitioners that will create case studies and curricula available to Indigenous planning programs at all Tribal Colleges and Universities
The School of Architecture and Planning at the University of New Mexico, an Hispanic-Serving Institution, Indigenous Design and Planning Institute (iD+Pi) is building partnerships and a robust learning community among Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs) and 23 of the Indigenous projects in which ArtPlace has invested. The consortium, Engaging Indigenous Creative Placemakers - Connecting the Dots, will facilitate exchanges between faculty and staff at the TCUs—beginning with Diné College, the oldest Tribally controlled college in North America—and practitioners who are leading and executing the projects.

University of Oregon - College of Design - School of Planning, Public Policy and Management
To create a special edition of the Journal of Urban Affairs, a peer-reviewed journal of the Urban Affairs Association, focused on arts in the city
Dr. Eleonora Redaelli, Associate Professor at the University of Oregon, and Dr. Deborah Stevenson, Professor at the Western Sydney University, will guest edit a Special Issue entitled The Arts and the City. The Journal of Urban Affairs is a peer-reviewed academic journal published eight times per year by Taylor & Francis on behalf of the Urban Affairs Association. This special edition will explore the role of the arts in the city, including concepts of the creative city, cultural planning, creative placemaking and the creative industries.

WORKING PARTNERSHIPS

Metris Arts Consulting
ArtPlace is working in partnership with Metris Arts Consulting on a study outlining the connection between social cohesion, public health and arts and culture. Led by PolicyLink, Metris Arts Consulting, University of Florida’s Center for Arts and Medicine and a collaborative of foundations are working to release a report of findings by January 2020.

ARTS & CULTURE

ioby
In 2019 ArtPlace launched a partnership with ioby to advance our leadership development and knowledge building activities. ioby is a non-profit crowdfunding platform that helps connect local leaders with the training and support they need to bring community ideas to life. The ioby Artists Lead! program provides a flexible funding opportunity for creative placemaking projects led by artists that includes one-on-one fundraising coaching and project development.

National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA)
To further advance our leadership development and knowledge building activities for the arts & culture field, ArtPlace launched a partnership with the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA) in 2019. NASAA is the membership organization representing the nation’s 56 state and jurisdictional arts agencies. Strengthening the State Arts Agency Support System for Creative Placemaking will provide research, professional development, and networking opportunities for Community Development Coordinators at each state arts agency.

LOCAL CONTROL, LOCAL FIELDS

Facilitation Teams
From 2019 through 2020, ArtPlace worked closely with a dedicated team of process facilitators to design and implement gatherings for the 5 Assemblies of the Local Control, Local Field initiative. These lead facilitation teams included: Esteban Kelly and Daniel Park of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives for the Philadelphia Assembly; Tanya Torp of Tanya Torp Consulting and Thomas Watson of Rural Support Partners as lead facilitators of the Central Appalachia Assembly; Saskia Epstein of Power Launch Philanthropy for the Massachusetts Assembly; Melissa Olson and Sandra J. Agustin of Inspire-to-Change for the Upper Midwest Assembly; Pato Hebert Chair of Arts Politics at Tisch School for the Arts at New York University and Daniel Park of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives for the San Joaquin Valley Assembly.