Early registration discount extended to 12/31!

Make the most of creativity in your community. Creative placemaking leverages arts and culture to engage, revitalize and reshape communities.

From rural to urban, municipalities and communities are addressing unprecedented challenges due to anxiety, unrest, and conflict created by the COVID-19 pandemic, political turmoil and economic slowdown. The impact of these current crises may be with us long into the future, and in many places, have highlighted or worsened long-standing issues. Healing our communities and finding ways to encourage harmony and collaboration among residents with diverse backgrounds and points of view will be key to the future success of our local economies and municipalities.

Creative Placemaking harnesses the power of arts and culture to allow for genuine public engagement. It is as much about “doing” as it is about planning, leveraging the power of diverse partnerships and hands-on participation to turn under-appreciated assets into focal points for a new community vitality. Whether focused on an art walk, temporary art display, community art classes, an art school, an artist residency, a community design process, mural project, outdoor theater, or another creative endeavor, the Creative Placemaking process adds arts and culture to your community and economic development toolkit.

Community spaces like streets, parks, buildings, facades, sidewalks, and vacant lots are the context for our shared life. These spaces can profoundly influence the strength and breadth of the bonds, trust and networks that underpin community resilience. These bonds become especially important in the face of uncertainties, disasters, and emergencies, but they are at the heart of how communities function even in the best of times. Identifying and creatively capitalizing on these underutilized assets can build this “social capital” and spark a new community spirit—boosting vitality, supporting economic recovery and growth, and getting people out, moving and connecting with each other—even in the time of COVID-19.

In this course, you will learn how to use the Creative Placemaking process to identify and leverage overlooked assets in your community, highlight and deepen your community’s unique character, integrate arts and culture into planning, expand participation for greater equity, and engage creativity and local knowledge to make your community a great place to live, work, play and visit.

WHY USE CREATIVE PLACEMAKING? HERE’S WHAT SOME FORMER STUDENTS HAVE TO SAY

One community-based organization turned to Creative Placemaking because “the usual approaches to planning are so boring.”

A state economic development officer said creative placemaking is the way their state will succeed in the recovery from COVID-19, “through giving voice to the community and community-led design, integrating arts and culture and making a place where people want to live, want to work, and want to play.”

A rural community cultural leader uses Creative Placemaking to help herself look at her “surroundings in different ways, comparing and contrasting neighborhoods, being more aware of communities, being more involved in public policies.”

IN THIS COURSE, YOU WILL

• Learn what Creative Placemaking is and why and how it supports more vibrant, sustainable, equitable and economically successful communities
• Identify specific strategies for artist/community collaborations
• Learn how to assemble a strong cross-sector planning and implementation team
• Identify community problems and challenges suited for a Creative Placemaking approach
• Map your community’s assets, including those that may be hidden or under-appreciated
• Learn a creative “doing” approach to community projects
• Learn to identify and tap funding sources
• Identify ways to market, promote and otherwise benefit from your unique community and your creative placemaking projects

PLUS YOU’LL RECEIVE

• A Creative Placemaking workbook that you have begun to populate for your own community application during the course
• Glossaries to support communication with partners from across different sectors

OPTIONAL ONE-ON-ONE COACHING

Add a one-on-one coaching session to help you develop a Creative Placemaking approach for your community.

WHO IS THIS FOR?

Community & economic development organizations and agency staff • Arts and cultural organization • Artists • Chambers of Commerce & business alliances • Place-based & conservation organizations • Extension & community development professionals • Downtown & Main Street groups • Business owners & other community leaders

COURSE INSTRUCTORS

Suzanne Ishee directs the New Jersey Institute of Technology Hub for Creative Placemaking, and was the president of the Center for Creative Placemaking for six years. Suzanne is an actor, an Emmy Award winning producer, and the founder of Broadway Center Stage.

Michele Archie is a principal of The Harbinger Consultancy. She brings 30 years of experience with community engagement and community economic development in rural communities across the West and throughout the country to this course.

SESSION DATES AND TIMES

Three live 2-hour weekly video conference sessions

February 23, March 2 and 9, 2021 + optional question-and-answer session with Creative Placemaking practitioners, March 16, 2021

11 a.m. -1 p.m. PT/2-4 p.m. ET

FEES & DETAILS

Every class will be presented live and available for replay in case you need to miss a session or want to review.

Basic course — $425 early registration through Dec. 18, $525 regular course fee

Complete course, including all course sessions & a one-on-one coaching session to adapt a Creative Placemaking approach for your community — $495 early registration, $595 regular course fee.

Group rates for two or more participants from the same organization or community — $375/person for basic course, $400/person for complete course with group coaching session.

SESSIONS

Three, two-hour live webinars plus an optional 90-minute Q&A session. Available for replay in case you miss a session or want to listen again.

Session 1: Just what is creative placemaking?

What is it and why does this approach give you more bang for the buck?

How can I best work with artists (or how can artists work best with me)?

The creative placemaking process and current opportunities

Putting a strong cross-sector team in place

Session 2: What the heck is the problem anyway?

Design thinking around problem identification

Matching the vision to the problem

Identify our asset goodie box

Ways to map and share our asset goodies

Session 3: Putting those goodies to work

Creative “doing” with our assets

OK, so how are we going to pay for this?

What’s so special about our place?

Marketing and promoting my unique community

Optional Session 4: Q&A with Creative Placemaking practitioners

How are communities putting Creative Placemaking into practice?

Resources for implementation

Your questions answered by course instructors and practitioners