Rural places across the nation are investing in community-based strategies that bring residents together to build connections, share stories, and uplift shared values. Placed-based initiatives — especially ones grounded in arts and culture — are necessary and powerful tools to build support for infrastructure, programs, and policies that advance inclusion and belonging.

When we hear stories that make us think about our own history, uplift our common struggle, or demonstrate our shared values, we can see ourselves reflected back. When we see storytellers in our communities that come from all walks of life, we are creating the conditions that spark individual actions toward welcoming and belonging.

So, how can we use the power of stories to build more welcoming communities? While each community’s strategy is different, many of the members of Welcoming America’s network follow a similar path when beginning their journey.

Communities advancing welcoming work often begin with storytelling as a way to make the community aware and supportive of the different ethnic and religious groups who reside there. Once a community becomes more aware of its cultural diversity, welcoming work often moves toward engaging institutions, community-based organizations, faith communities, and even local government through events or organized cultural exchanges. When we bring individuals and institutions together to learn, celebrate, and explore cultural diversity as a community, we have the opportunity to build a whole-of-community approach to inclusion and move into a future where everyone can thrive and belong.

In this tool, we at Welcoming America share three takeaways from a recent podcast by Arts Midwest featuring stories of welcoming in rural Nebraska from Liz Rodriguez at Centro Hispano and Valeria Rodriguez at Empowering Families. We share ways to create the conditions for our diverse communities to share their stories, engage individuals and institutions in welcoming work, and plan for and execute successful Welcoming Week events in your community.

Companion Audio: Rural Threads

Featuring

• 

  Alivia Haibach

  Welcoming America

  Alivia Haibach is a Regional Manager for Welcoming America. She works with members across to develop policies and strategies to increase equitable access and create opportunities that yield a sense of community belonging for all.

  Prior to Welcoming America, Alivia worked as the Health Equity Coordinator at the Erie County Department of Health in Erie, Pennsylvania. She focused on centering community voices to shrink the health disparity gaps in Erie County with an emphasis on communities that have experienced historic marginalization.

  Alivia holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Allegheny College in International Relations and is a Master of Public Administration degree from Gannon University.

• 

  Valeria Rodriguez

  Empowering Families

  Valeria Rodriguez immigrated from Mexico to Mitchell, NE with her family when she was five years old, in 2000. Valeria holds a B.A. in Spanish and Political Science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and is currently pursuing her master’s in Public Administration from the University of Nebraska-Omaha. She serves on the board of the Nebraska Civic Engagement Table and Panhandle Partnership. In 2018, she co-founded Empowering Families. As an immigrant herself she felt an organization was missing to help advocate and build the collective power that exists within her community, in rural Western Nebraska.

  Valeria currently serves as Empowering Families’ part-time executive director, and works full-time as a DOJ Accredited Representative with Immigrant Legal Center, a nonprofit organization that provides legal services, education, and advocacy for immigrants in Nebraska and Southwest Iowa.

• 

  Liz Rodriguez

  Centro Hispano

  Liz Rodriguez is the Welcoming & Belonging Director at Centro Hispano, a non-profit organization serving immigrant families, learners, and entrepreneurs in rural Nebraska.

Uplifting our personal narrative

Understanding who is in our community is critical to breaking free of our silos. Coming together to share stories is a wonderful way to open ears and hearts to other cultures and histories.

Community members all have stories of welcome to share. By creating opportunities for people to come together and talk about their personal history of welcoming and belonging, we can weave a welcoming narrative together.

Personal stories or narratives are especially powerful in changing people’s beliefs and behaviors. Storytelling can set the stage for active listening and emotional engagement, which can help people be more open to changing their beliefs. Rural communities have many events and opportunities that can use stories and personal narratives as connection points.

Consider building your personal story of welcome by reflecting on the following questions:

• What is your story of arriving in this community?
• What brought your family here?
• Why has your family continued to live in this community?
• Where in the community do you feel like you belong?

Once you’ve thought about these questions yourself or in a group that you are a part of, try using this technique to open meetings or other gatherings.

Welcoming Network members Liz Rodriguez (Welcoming & Belonging Director at Centro Hispano) and Valeria (executive director of Empowering Families) describe their experience using storytelling and personal narratives:

Communicating with Stories

“[Sharing] our own personal stories first… helps us open up to that conversation. Storytelling is a powerful thing. I believe it’s one of our best tools to be able to communicate with stakeholders, communities, [and] government. To those who want to join in the work or who don’t know who we are or what the work is about, it is eye-opening for them when they come and see and hear.”

— Liz Rodriguez

Centro Hispano

Columbus, NE

Graduation Ceremony

Shifting Narratives

“We were able to bring in [a speaker] who is a documented Black immigrant. There’s always a perception that immigration is a Latinx issue when it’s not, and so him coming to rural Nebraska to share his story and his immigrant experience was so eye-opening for a lot of community members as well as…local government officials that attended our event because they had never heard a story like his. We were able to shift the narrative by bringing him to our community to share his experience.”

— Valeria Rodriguez

African Arts Arena

Grand Forks, ND

Community Discussion

Creating Safer Spaces

The space to tell our community’s stories are just as important as the stories themselves. Creating spaces where all community members feel safe and supported to share their stories across lines of differences can feel challenging. A few ways to start creating these spaces in your community are:

Centro Hispano in Columbus, Nebraska is even bringing the idea of welcoming to life by building a welcoming center in their small city. Creating opportunities for people to come together and talk about their personal history is an important way to uplift the diversity in our communities and better understand who our neighbors are and where they come from.

Creating a Welcoming Center

“Our idea is just to have all different organizations that normally are not as accessible to the community and to certain community members brought now to them instead of them going to the organizations… Our space is to be welcoming and we want them to feel as though they’re coming into a community that embraces them, into a place that they can be themselves and ask the questions that they’re afraid to ask. We were thinking about those immigrant families who sometimes are scared to go to the doctor. We were thinking about those immigrant families that are scared to go into a bank because they don’t speak the language.”

– Liz Rodriguez

La Luz Centro Cultural

Hampton, IA

Welcoming Center

Building a coalition to celebrate community

While activating individuals can be extremely powerful on its own, bringing those individuals together with community institutions can take welcoming to the next level.

Place-based events that involve art projects or storytelling create opportunities for organizations and individuals to map out their entry point to welcoming work together. Planning these events can be an opportunity to consider who’s at the table, from initial concept to event launch, and perhaps more importantly, who needs to be at the table to move the work forward.

Communities across the nation are building partnerships and coalitions where every critical player in welcoming work is recognized. Planning an arts and cultural event can be a great starting point for your coalition. At Welcoming America, we use these steps to work with rural communities starting to build multisector coalitions:

Using these simple steps can help your local network of partners move welcoming work from individual action to community-wide engagement.

How Welcoming Week can bring it all together

Place-based welcoming initiatives yield opportunities for organizations to get involved in community transformation. Welcoming Week is an excellent opportunity to bring individuals and organizations together and build support for welcoming and inclusion in your community.

Every year, Welcoming Week is a campaign that showcases the movement of communities striving to be more welcoming places for all. Participating communities proclaim welcoming values through events and local initiatives that foster mutual understanding between immigrants and non-immigrants.

Empowering Families leveraged Welcoming Week to support a welcoming narrative at one of their annual conferences in Scotts Bluff, Nebraska:

Generations of Welcoming

“Last year our Multicultural Youth Leadership Conference and all the cultural events that we did within that conference took place during Welcoming Week. This amazing conference [is] able to benefit youth by bringing different speakers and workshops to build resilience and get them to hear stories and experiences that they wouldn’t hear about in the school system. We are building our next generation of community members, and through this conference, we’re able to share these narratives of welcoming and belonging. The conference is one element to the larger strategy that we’re going to be doing here in Scotts Bluff.”

— Valeria Rodriguez

Empowering Families

Scottsbluff, NE

Multicultural Youth Leadership Conference

Photo Credit: Empowering Families

Cities, towns, counties, and states can lean into what makes their communities welcoming places and share stories that highlight the benefits of fostering belonging for all people, especially immigrants. For example, Centro Hispano leveraged Welcoming Week to celebrate immigrant artwork in Nebraska. A local organization donated materials and space for a Cuban immigrant artist in the community to lead a class and teach people about her culture through art.

If Welcoming Week is the right approach to amplify the stories of immigrants and refugees in your community, you can encourage community stakeholders to engage in welcoming in any of the following ways:

Welcoming Week is one opportunity to bring together the stories and partners that make your community a vibrant home to people of all backgrounds. Whether your small community is just getting

The post Uplifting and Celebrating the Diversity of Rural Communities appeared first on Arts Midwest.

It’s possible to build thriving, prosperous rural communities and Native Nations where each and every person belongs and lives with dignity. We call this outcome: equitable rural prosperity.

To get there, we need ways of thinking and acting that are powerful enough to move communities to action, build shared purpose across regions and change the status quo.

Companion Audio: Rural Threads

Featuring

• 

  Bonita Robertson-Hardy

  Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group

  Bonita Robertson-Hardy is Co-Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group. Through her work as a workforce and economic development professional committed to connecting the public sector, private sector and nonprofit communities, she builds relationships, utilizes her voice to influence policy, and advocates for equity and opportunity in public and private organizations.

  Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, Bonita worked at the Greater New Orleans Foundation (GNOF), the community foundation for 13 rural and urban parishes in the southeast Louisiana region. During her eight years at GNOF, she served as Director of Workforce Initiatives as well as Director of Civic Leadership. In these roles she developed employer–led workforce partnerships to train jobseekers and incumbent workers, established an initiative to provide post-hire supportive services for employees at their worksites, led the strategic planning process for the equitable revitalization of an economic development zone within downtown New Orleans, and worked to support and catalyze progressive initiatives to promote growth and equity throughout the region.

  A native of New Orleans, Bonita holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Healthcare Management from Howard University and a Juris Doctorate from Loyola University College of Law. She currently serves as a commissioner of the Ernest N. Morial New Orleans Exhibition Hall Authority and as a board member of Louise S. McGehee school. Bonita is also a past fellow of the Association for Black Foundation Executives (ABFE) Connecting Leaders Fellowship Program.

• 

  Chris Estes

  Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group

  Chris Estes is Co-Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group. He has served as Senior Consultant with the Housing Assistance Council, helping 40 rural organizations across the country build capacity and community development efforts in the face of the pandemic and natural disasters. Prior to that, he served as the Interim Executive Director of the Raleigh/Wake Partnership to End Homelessness, a continuum of care for the county’s homeless programs.

  Prior to that, he was Vice President of Business Strategy and Advocacy at Rebuilding Together, where he led its national policy efforts, advanced community revitalization and healthy housing programs, and built new partnerships with national funders and other community development organizations. Chris also served 5 years as President/CEO of the National Housing Conference in Washington, DC, where he led the strategic direction of NHC’s policy, communications and research work and became a national thought leader on affordable housing and community development issues, including the intersection of housing with transportation, education and health.

  A native of North Carolina, Chris’s work at the national level has given him insight into federal policymaking and the innerworkings of HUD and USDA-Rural Development, and his experience at the community level in community organizing, affordable housing development, land use and credit syndication has exposed him to good practice, innovations and challenges in states and urban and rural localities across the nation. He served on the board of directors of the Baltimore branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and the National Low-Income Housing Coalition.

  Chris is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). He holds two master’s degrees from UNC-CH in social work and city and regional planning.

About the Rural Thrive Framework

The Thrive Rural Framework weaves together current community innovations and tested approaches for working together on all issues integral to achieving equitable rural prosperity – from welcoming communities, economic development, and health to civic engagement.

To develop this tool, Aspen CSG convened an inclusive set of practitioners and intermediaries reflecting the diversity of rural places, economies, populations, and cultures from across the country.

The framework calls for an asset-based approach and working across the local and systems levels of change to clarify and address the underlying factors that must be true to create prosperous rural communities where each and every person belongs, lives with dignity, and thrives.

The framework offers a new, complementary focal point for development efforts. Rather than focus on specific needs and issues, it explores shared thinking, equitable goals, the readiness of people and leadership to act, and the organizational structures to learn and act together.

It also helps practitioners and communities take stock and find new, sometimes unexpected, ways to work together on shared challenges and opportunities.

It also connects community needs with larger forces and discussions among national stakeholders. It does this by tracing shared elements such as local leadership, equitable aims, and capacity building through the systemic level.

Critically, the framework confronts and seeks to address the reality that people in rural communities and Native Nations face unique types of systemic discrimination due to race, place, and class.

Discrimination based on place (size or location of the community), race (racial, immigrant, or cultural identity), and class (wealth or income) vary from place to place, but they affect every aspect of life, from who is included in decision-making groups, to design of policies and regulations.

The framework can help stakeholders take stock, target action, and assess progress with these fundamental considerations in mind.

To spark new ways of thinking, the Thrive Rural Framework is designed to be looked at in many ways. 

At its core, the framework identifies building blocks for equitable prosperity at both the local level and in the broad landscape, which we call the systems level.  

There are also common elements at both local and systems levels. Each element is meant to spark conversation and support assessment of the design and outcomes of policies and programs.  

The Thrive Rural Framework is designed to be a living tool that community members, philanthropists, policymakers, government agencies, and business leaders can use to come to agreement on and promote a more widespread and equitable rural prosperity.  

How can arts organizations get involved in advancing equitable rural prosperity? 

Aspen CSG invites everyone invested in the prosperity and wellbeing of rural communities and regions to use the framework as the starting point of a shared approach. 

You can start at any stage in this cycle and build on the work you are already doing. Consider your work and what action might be next based on where you are right now. 

Here are three building blocks from the Thrive Rural Framework that we recommend looking at for inspiration, given the unique role of connectors that arts institutions can play in civic and social infrastructure.  

• Welcome All To The Community 
• Build from Current Assets 
• Act as a Region 

What will working like this do for communities?

Together we can recognize a future where rural communities and Native Nations across the rural United States are healthy places where each and every person belongs, lives with dignity, and thrives. 

Download the Thrive Rural Framework Assessment Worksheet

The post Starting Where You Are to Build Equitable Rural Prosperity   appeared first on Arts Midwest.

+Community – a group of people, united by a common purpose and galvanized through actively improving the conditions around them

Companion Audio: Rural Threads

Featuring

• 

  Nick Cochart

  KINECTM1

  Nick Cochart has served the school district in the small lakeshore community of Algoma, Wisconsin since 2011, in roles ranging from Middle School/High School Principal to Athletic Director to Superintendent. A former Academic All-Big Ten lineman at the University of Wisconsin, he holds a Masters and PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis.

  Read More

  Collaborating with like-minded individuals in the community, Nick helped raise over $2 million dollars toward the construction of the Algoma Community Wellness Center and Wolf Tech Center adjoined to the high school. He was elected President of the Door/Kewaunee County insurance consortium; is community advisor for the Institute of Healthcare Improvement’s SCALE initiative with 100 Million Healthier Lives; is a Culture of Health Ambassador for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; and received the Northeast Wisconsin Manufacturing Alliance’s Educational Innovation Award.

  His passion for overcoming the challenges faced by rural communities and school systems prompted him to co-found KinectM1, as he strives to excel, and help others to excel, in a continually changing world.

   

• 

  Teal VanLanen

  KINECTM1

  Teal VanLaren has dedicated her career to improving the health and well-being of those living in and around the small rural community of Algoma, Wisconsin. As the Director of Improvement and Community Engagement with the Algoma School District, Teal focused on creating spaces that bring multiple generations together to serve as a hub for community improvement and connection.

  Read More

  In 2015, Teal co-founded the grassroots initiative Live Algoma, which earned international recognition including the Robert Wood Johnson Culture of Health Prize. The same year, she was named Improvement Advisor for the 100 Million Healthier Lives – SCALE Initiative led by the Institute of Healthcare Improvement. Teal has expanded her educational foundation to parallel her career path, and she now holds a master’s degree in Educational Leadership with an emphasis on Social Justice and Equity.

  In her current role, Teal co-founded KinectM1, and serves as the driving force in connecting communities dedicated to creating the conditions for all to thrive.

• 

  Adam Peronto

  KINECTM1

  A selfless advocate for individuals with different abilities, Adam Peronto is a cornerstone of authentic and diverse programming across northeast Wisconsin.

  Read More

  A 2017 University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire graduate, Adam developed the Door County Meals Cooperative while working for Door County Medical Center.in response to the needs identified during the early stages of COVID-19. Alongside this work, Adam also founded and managed Peninsula Charities, where he partnered with local stakeholders to facilitate fundraising events for area nonprofits. His most recent work developing and implementing the RIDE4Kids program is expanding rapidly as a sought-after support program for students with disabilities in northeast Wisconsin.

  Since joining KinectM1 as Executive Project Director, Adam has focused on elevating the connections between diverse populations and our natural environments.

• 

  Myrna Peterson

  Mobility Mania

  Myrna Peterson is the founder of Mobility Mania, an organization dedicated to promoting accessibility in Minnesota’s Itasca County, while providing a framework for promoting its mission to the state and federal level.

  Read More

  A grandmother from the rural northern Minnesota community of Grand Rapids, Myrna’s public school and college level teaching career was cut short by a devastating auto accident that caused her to become a quadriplegic. She credits her background in technology, love of live, faith, and perseverance for allowing her to continue learning and teaching in her community.

  The recipient of the 2019 AARP Minnesota Andrus Award for Community Service, Myrna is active in both Itasca County and the State of Minnesota, most recently as a member of the Governor’s Committee on Waiver Reimagine and the Governor’s Council on Assistive Technology. She also contributes as a Board member in local arts and culture and faith-based organizations.

Address Shared Challenges by Building on the “Commons”

The biggest societal issues of today are demanding new levels of collaboration and innovation, especially in the rural communities across the Midwest.  

While there is much passion to improve the many challenges facing our communities, it remains difficult to create sustainable change when working alone. So how can we transform these shared problems into shared opportunities? At Kinect M1, we have found that when passion and will become interwoven with relationships, connections, and a shared vision, the impossible becomes possible.

Defining the “Commons”

The “Commons” is essentially a space which holds the assets of a community. How communities utilize, interact with, and restore these resources within that space is central to the work of Kinect M1. When community members are able to recognize these common resources and assets, they have a natural propensity to utilize them, creating beautiful possibilities and building things of enduring meaning and value for all.

Read more

La Luz Centro Cultural

Hampton, IA

We the Many

Photo Credit: La Luz Centro Cultural

However, without management and the stewardship of these shared assets, a “Tragedy of the Commons” will occur; often depleting the associated resources and assets to the point of destruction.

For example, imagine an open pasture of grassland where local farmers slowly introduce animals to graze. If managed correctly, the resource will provide while also replenishing. Without consideration of management, the number of animals increasingly stresses the resource, overwhelming the resource, and destroying it because it was never allowed to replenish.

Communities+ that build a harmonious cycle of utilization and restoration, reap the benefits of a collective resource that feeds community improvement. The “Art of the Human Dynamic” is intentional and must be fostered in our communities+ if we wish to develop a prosperous and thriving community “Commons”.

Create an Artful Personal Invitation to Grow Community Momentum

To build a thriving “Commons” in your community+, consider personally inviting those who have experienced the challenge firsthand, as well as those who hold a piece to the puzzle. In other words, invite those who can help create the opportunity in which you want to see. The invitation you extend will generate interest and hope for a different and desirable outcome. A letter, text, or email will not convey the call for change, nor elicit the necessary response. An invitation needs to be thoughtful and in-person. People need to hear directly about the challenge, the importance of it for you, your dreams for the future, and why you value their input in the work ahead.

Here are some tips shared from communities+ across Northeast Wisconsin when crafting personal invitations:

Want to learn more? Check out these real tips from Northeast Wisconsin.

Try it Yourself

Are you feeling inspired to create the “Art of the Human Dynamic” and generate a Thriving Commons? It’s time to craft your personal invitations!

• Who needs to be invited?
• What pieces of the puzzle do you hold?
• What pieces do you need yet, and who holds those pieces?
• Why will people want to respond to the invitation?
• How is the invitation made, who is doing the invite, and why does their voice need to be at the table?
• What are people being invited to?

Remember: An invitation needs to be thoughtful and in-person.

Ready to go deeper? Download our DIY Guide: Elements of a Personal Invitation

The post How to Transform Shared Challenges into Community Opportunities appeared first on Arts Midwest.

In 2022, I created The Grove, a public-outdoor art display in an underutilized pocket park that has now become a permanent, seasonal outdoor art gallery. The park went from an overgrown, unlit area to a thriving and dynamic community space with new lighting and maintained landscaping. It is now a favored spot for family photo sessions or a place to bring out of town guests and has shifted the way people think about their town. 

Using my experience with The Grove, I’d like to share 3 strategies to help artists, community leaders, and nonprofit organizations cultivate a creative placemaking mindset to create their own successful placemaking initiatives.

Companion Audio: Rural Threads

Featuring

• 

  Amber Danielson

  MARSHALL COUNTY ARTS AND CULTURAL ALLIANCE

  Amber Danielson is a Marshalltown, Iowa native and has served as the Executive Director of the Arts + Culture Alliance since 2016. She is a Marshalltown Community College and University of Northern Iowa graduate where she obtained her bachelor’s degree in marketing and international business.

  Read More

  Under her leadership, the Arts + Culture Alliance has added more than 30 public art installations throughout the community totaling over half a million dollars. She has generated over $4 million dollars in grant funding for creativity in her community and most recently spearheaded the development of the city’s first Arts & Culture Master Plan.

  Most recently, she was the recipient of the 2023 Governor’s Emerging Arts Leader award for the State of Iowa and received the 2022 Outstanding Leader Award by Youth and Shelter Services. Currently, Amber serves as the Chair of the Iowa Arts Council board of directors, leads a state-wide arts leaders networking group and is the treasurer for Marshalltown’s 13th Street District board.

   

• 

  Gabriella Torres

  Artist

  Gabriella Torres is an abstract painter living and painting in her hometown of Clinton, Iowa. She specializes in creating large scale, colorful abstract pieces that focus on themes of balance and connectivity to ourselves and to the natural world. She is passionate about creating community-based art experiences that promote engagement and the arts in Clinton.

  Read More

  Gabriella has been a presenter at the Iowa Arts Summit at Mainframe Studios in Des Moines and was recently honored as an Emerging Arts Leader at the Governor’s Arts Award ceremony presented by the Iowa Arts Council and the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs.

  Gabriella’s work has appeared in group shows internationally in Madrid, Paris, Genoa, and Milan and stateside in New York City and Miami. In 2022, she also had two local exhibits of her work, WILD, presented at the Sawmill Museum, and The Grove, an outdoor public and interactive art exhibit in downtown Clinton that has since become a permanent outdoor art gallery space.

• 

  Jennifer Drinkwater

  IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY

  A Mississippi native, Jennifer Drinkwater is an artist, an associate professor of art & visual culture and the community arts specialist for extension and outreach at Iowa State University. She has a B.A. in both studio art and anthropology from Tulane University and earned an M.F.A in painting from East Carolina University

  Read More

  Jennifer explores how we bring artwork from the studio into the world, and how art-making can both build and shape community. During the past few years, she has partnered with communities in Iowa and Mississippi in various community art projects, programming and theatre productions.

  Jennifer’s also the creator of The What’s Good Project, which celebrates the meaningful stories from where we live through community conversations and painting.

• 

  Melissa Bond

  UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY

  Melissa Bond is the Community Arts Extension Program Leader for the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service. She also oversees the Community & Economic Development Initiative of Kentucky (CEDIK)’s First Impressions program, the Creative Economy program, arts partnerships with other colleges within UK and other universities across the country, and arts-based professional development offerings for Extension Agents.

  Read More

  Most recently, Melissa was the project director for the Rural America Placemaking Toolkit and the Placemaking in Small & Rural Communities Conference, a partnership with USDA Rural Development to provide access to placemaking resources, programs, and information for rural communities across states, tribal nations, and territories.

  Melissa holds a Master of Arts in Public Administration/Social Responsibility & Sustainable Communities from Western Kentucky University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from University of the Cumberlands.

Building an Asset Mentality

The first key component in cultivating your creative placemaking mindset is building an asset mentality. In many rural communities, we are often faced with empty storefronts on our main avenues, dilapidated buildings, or underutilized or under-cared for green spaces. It is easy to see these places and spaces and focus on the challenges they bring. However, an asset mentality shifts the perspective from what is lacking to what is possible. Instead of seeing an empty storefront, could that be an opportunity to showcase work from local artists and makers with QR codes that take you to their website? Is an old building a blank canvas for a mural? Is an empty lot a location for a new sculpture garden complete with park benches?

How I Did It:

My concept for The Grove was to create an “art forest” where visitors would be able to walk through a forest of art for an intimate and immersive art experience. At the same time, I also wanted this art display to beautify and provide new energy to a space that was largely overlooked by the community. Additionally, it had to be easily accessible to all community members, meaning that it was within walking distance from more residential areas while also being close to a bus route. Pocket Park was a place I had visited often and was currently under risk of being turned into a cement lot. However, viewing it as an asset rather than a hindrance, it became the chosen site for The Grove and is now a permanent outdoor art gallery in Clinton, adding value to the community as well as to the surrounding downtown area and is heavily featured in our tourism marketing materials through Grow Clinton.  

Put it into Practice: 

• Create a list of buildings, places, and spaces that are potential assets.
• What is the potential of each building, place, or space?

What could creative placemaking look like with that asset in mind?

Pro-tip: Community Partners are Assets

Assets aren’t limited to physical spaces and places. Think of the human resources in your community, too. Who are local leaders, creatives, doers, makers? How could they contribute to creative placemaking in your town?

Photo Credit: John Robson

Turning Partners into Active Participants

Another key component in cultivating a creative placemaking mindset is turning your partners into active participants. Successful creative placemaking hinges on your partnerships and relationships and the ability to make them feel like a vital part of the process- because they are! The most impactful creative placemaking initiatives can connect people from across different sectors of the community with each of them feeling equally invested because they have a vital role to play. Beyond just donating money, partnerships can look like project management assistance, installation input, or volunteering to be the fiscal agent so that funds can be funneled through a 501(c)3, thus making the project easier to fundraise for. The more directly involved your partners can be in placemaking, the more impact the project will have throughout your community,

How I Did It:

For The Grove, early on, I identified who my key partners needed to be and approached them for their support. This included the City of Clinton Parks and Recreation Department who oversaw the park. This partnership led to an incredible partnership with the City of Clinton Public Works Department who helped to clean up the park, add lighting to the park, purchase additional lighting for the installation, as well as helping with the actual layout and installation of the display. This was no small contribution as the display consisted of 12 free-standing, heavy wooden frames ranging from 4 to 10 feet in size. In addition, from the outset I worked with local woodworker, Tim Fuller from Retired with Wood, who designed the sculptural frames, as well as with Steve Pearson from Upholstery Unlimited who designed the convertible top canvas panels. They helped solve many of the challenges this installation presented and were instrumental in the success of The Grove. In addition, active partnerships lead to impactful change. Public Works is now incorporating artistic flourishes into the new wayfinding system as a result of The Grove.

Put it into Practice:

• Engage your partners- ask them for their ideas and input. Make them part of your team.
• Assign tasks – people often are willing to do more but may not know how best to help or support your initiative. Assign them a task. If they are good managers, ask them to help project manage. If they are good planners, ask them for help with event planning.
• Use key partners as advisors. Run ideas past your key partners and reach out to them for guidance when needed.

Pro-tip: Capitalize on your Community

Invite your community to be part of the process through input, conversations, or hands-on help. The more involved your community feels with the project, the more support your project will have and the more successful it will be in both the short and long term.

Photo Credit: John Robson

Celebrating the Story

The third component for cultivating your creative placemaking mindset is celebrating the story. This is key for not only your own creative placemaking mindset, but for cultivating this mindset in others. One of the most exciting aspects of creative placemaking is that it is an opportunity for you and your community to show the world how you see your town. It’s an opportunity to decide on the stories we want to tell each other about the places where we live. A celebration can be an opening reception event, a feature in media outlets, or social media content. Whatever method or combination of methods you decide to use, celebrate the story you are both creating and telling.

How I Did It:

For The Grove, I decided to have a large opening reception event, complete with catering, refreshments, and live music. In addition, I did a heavy media blast and sent out press releases and invitations to the event to local and statewide media outlets. I also reached out to my network of friends to share the story of The Grove, which landed me a TV spot on Paula Sands Live! All of these measures helped to amplify not only the story of The Grove, but more importantly, the story of Clinton, Iowa as a dynamic river town that values the arts.

Put it into Practice:

• Plan your event using these tips: Event Planning 101
• Make a list of local media outlets and contacts. Keep this list up to date.
• Identify your network and who would like to share your story. Ask them to share.

Pro-tip: Documentation is Key

Don’t forget to document the story of your project. From meetings and site visits, to the installation and event, be sure to take lots of photos and videos and notes of testimonials and quotes along the way. Not only are these materials great for historic and archival purposes, but they will help you share your story for years to come and can be used to secure funding and resources for future projects.

Silver Threads Assisted Living

Gregory, SD

GIG Fund

Photo Credit: Bailey Veskrna, Prairie Feather Photography

Try it Yourself

Are you feeling inspired? You can download this framework to help you being to cultivate your creative placemaking mindset.

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