By Leonardo Vazquez,
AICP/PP
The National Endowment for the Arts Our Town program has
approved PlanSmart NJ and The National Consortium for
Creative Placemaking for a two-year, $50,000 grant to help build the field
of creative placemaking in New Jersey.
The grant, announced in May, was awarded to advance this growing
practice.
This grant will help grow several strategies to build a
supportive, learning community among people who work to make places better
through arts and cultural activity.
Funding will support convenings that bring together hundreds
of people, such as the Creative
Placemaking Leadership Summit, the Creative
Placemaking Knowledge Exchange and Creative
Team Roundtables; thought leadership to build a more welcoming climate for
arts and creativity; and Community Coaching.
Each community that completes Community
Coaching will receive an extra 10 hours of technical assistance per year,
thanks to the grant. PlanSmart NJ and
NCCP will create a community advisory board of partners and representatives of
Community Coaching teams to enhance the impact of the upcoming work.
 |
| Community building at the 2016 Creative Placemaking Leadership Summit |
Through research,
policy briefings and guides, PlanSmart NJ influences leaders and
policymakers in New Jersey to make wiser decisions around land use and
sustainable development. The National
Consortium for Creative Placemaking (NCCP) works to build capacity, connections
and community among creative placemakers throughout the United States. NCCP
organizes interesting, informative and useful convenings; designed and leads
the Certification
in Creative Placemaking program at The Ohio State University; conducts
webinars and workshops; designed and conducts the Community Coaching program;
conducts research on the creative economy; and influences leaders from the
neighborhood to the national level.
PlanSmart and NCCP have worked together on several
projects. Among them were the
development of the creative placemaking research and strategies in the
award-winning Together
North Jersey initiative.
To learn more about how this grant can help your community,
please contact NCCP Executive Director Leonardo Vazquez by
email or at 973-763-6352.
PlanSmart NJ Executive Director Ann Brady contributed to this report.
Congratulations, Leo.
ReplyDelete