Downtown Denver Partnership’s Post

🏘️ Transforming Communities Together in Scarborough, Ontario! 🏘️ Discover the revolutionary Connected Community Approach (CCA) - a framework designed ‘by the community for the community’. 🌟 This innovative model shifts the focus from seeing communities as vulnerable recipients to empowering them as active partners in solving today’s biggest challenges. Drawing on social innovation, deep equity, and community development, CCA builds powerful cross-sector coalitions and introduces three game-changing innovations: 1️⃣ Community-based facilitators as backbone organizations. 2️⃣ Strategies for centering community in organizational action planning. 3️⃣ 10 keys to unlock the potential of connected communities at local and systems levels. With a 25-year legacy, CCA strengthens social fabric, creating healthier and more equitable communities. Ready to see how Scarborough is leading the way? 🚀 Read the full article now! 👉

My desk is full of reminders as to why and how I do this work. Do you have significant objects in your office as well? 🌹 A print from Bread and Puppet Theater: "Resistance of the Heart Against Business as Usual", reminding me to never be complacent. 🪑 Just swapped my Ithaca Murals calendar for Village at Ithaca's "Our Seats For The Table" calendar - an art installation using found chairs to celebrate leaders and illustrate oppressive systems - reminding me of the institutional barriers which harm my neighbors and the imperative to provide enough seats for everyone. 🧡 A print from Justseeds by Molly Fair: "Movements are born of critical connections rather than critical mass", reminding me that the community network we build is essential to doing transformative work. 🚲 A neon bike pin from The Center for Community Transportation reminding me to center sustainability & accessibility in our conversations. 🐦 An indigo-dyed bird from a fiber artist market in Oaxaca, reminding me that we are globally connected. 🔗 And on the desk, a length of timing chain from the previous occupants of the factory at SouthWorks, reminding me to honor our community history.

The success of two radically revitalized communities, Greenville, SC and Laramie, WY, inspire revitalization and reveal the benefits of funding opportunities, tools, and resources that help “Changemakers” revitalize their areas also. Are you a “Changemaker”? How can you too be radically equipped and empowered to transform your area? Get more…

This is an extended opportunity to sign up for the BOLD Program! This marks the 12th year of collaboration between the City of Beaverton and Unite Oregon. The BOLD 2024 cohort, comprising 15-18 participants, will receive an in-depth insight into city policy and decision-making, develop the skills to drive change in their communities, and build a network of engaged and influential alumni to support their goals. The BOLD 2024 Program is structured around four key objectives: 1. Understand the local government structure, functions, and services, and discover how to get involved; 2. Acquire concrete leadership, community organizing, and advocacy skills; 3. Receive information on research, alternative solutions, and recommended actions specific to each project or program (Affordable Housing Program, Long Range Planning, and Cultural Inclusion) to build community capacity and have the tools to engage in upcoming community opportunities; and 4. Contribute to making Beaverton a thriving, multicultural city that is inclusive to everyone! Register here: https://lnkd.in/gGwpUZnC

Motivational Monday 💯 Transform Mid-Atlantic, formerly known as Campus Compact Mid-Atlantic, mobilizes and builds the institutional capacity of our member campuses and their community partners to develop global citizens who work to create just, equitable and sustainable institutions and communities. Through leveraging our talents as a network, we build the institutional capacity of our member campuses and their partners to achieve their civic missions. Additionally, we build campus-community partnerships to improve community life. We achieve this through utilizing the following local, regional, and national strategies https://lnkd.in/eaiHbrNP

Our team is working on pulling together a high-value (low to no cost) webinar series focusing on "Community Building." When Nate Geinzer left his City Manager role nearly two years ago and determined to focus on consulting, three experiences drove the direction he would take Double Haul Solutions and his interest in community building: 1) Working on community building efforts in the City of Port Huron's Southside/South Park Neighborhood 2) Participating in the 2022 Community Builders Camp hosted by Doug Griffiths, MBA, of 13 Ways Inc. and 3) Teaching a great group of Masters of Public Administration Students at Oakland University. Because Nate is wired to collaborate, we wanted to create an opportunity for our followers and networks to help shape this emerging content. Our goal will be to have sessions build on one another, leaving participants not only inspired, but equipped with actionable strategies. Working titles/topics currently being considered/assembled include: ▶ What is Community Building: A Conversation ▶ Building Community in Less than Civil Conditions ▶ Embracing and Leveraging Diversity to Build Community ▶ Youth Engagement: A Mistake to Overlook ▶ Leveraging Neighborhoods to Build Community ▶ Building Organizational Capacity: Operationalizing Community Building ▶ Sustaining Community Building Through Constructive Relationships: Identifying and Effectively Engaging Collaborators ▶ Sustaining Community Building Through Constructive Relationships: Navigating Elected/Appointed Relations ▶ Missing Pieces: Basic Civics & Community Building Although we are still working on identifying speakers for each session, we can confirm Seth Kaplan will be participating in the "Leveraging Neighborhoods" session. Coming Summer/Fall 2024. #CommunityBuilding #CapacityBuilding #PublicService #CityManager #LocalGovernment Mitchell Foster, ICMA-CM April McGrath Lynch Lori Fisher Teresa Gillotti Peter Chapman Amanda Opalewski, MPA, CQIA Henry Outlaw, MPA Torri Mathes Jenny Vainberg

Sometimes it is difficult to describe in words how you feel about something so impactful. I encourage you to watch this video, listen to the story, and feel the connection that is being described. So proud to have EAPC linked to this story and how our design plays a critical role in connecting the past to the future. #culturaldesign #EAPCdesign #K12designleader

These past two years have been amazing - full of personal and professional growth, amazing partners and new relationships, and working with an all-star team! I can't wait to see what the next two years bring for Creating Community Consulting! #organizationalculture #communitydriven #collaboration #communitygrowth

This past fall, I led a group of our Virginia Tech SPIA graduate students in their course on Collaborative Planning and Community Engagement. They worked with a resident activist group, the Friends of Evans Spring, who have organized to try to protect the last remaining urban forest in the City of Roanoke, VA, from development. The forest is just to the north of a predominantly African American neighborhood, which was displaced there following the destruction of the historic Black neighborhoods in the City during urban renewal. If you've read about Root Shock, by Mindy Fullilove, MD, you've heard about Roanoke -- it is one of three cases she uses to describe the inter-generational psychological trauma caused by urban renewal in American cities-- legacies of urban planning decisions. This project was very challenging for us, as outsiders, and as scholars/students of urban planning, who recognize both the potential and the limitations of the tools of urban planning to effect truly transformative change. We studied closely the examples of Ken Reardon, Leonie Sandercock, Patricia Wilson, and others, to open up spaces of transformation through deep community engagement. We found that through a willingness to be vulnerable, to empathically hold another's pain - and hope - even though we could not guarantee any outcome, the process changed *us*. Increasingly, I understand that this is the transformation that our society needs. How do *we* learn to become neighbors to those we formerly considered strangers? What does it mean to teach... love... of neighbor? I have been asked by the City of Roanoke's Equity and Empowerment Advisory Board to present our process of community engagement to City Council on Feb 5. I have recorded the presentation, which can be viewed here: https://lnkd.in/eAPRk3fW Many thanks to the Fall 2023 students in my Collaborative Planning and Community Engagement class~ I learned so much from working with you all on this.

If you know what you want to be, then you inevitably become it – that is your punishment, but if you never know, then you can be anything. [Paraphrasing Oscar Wilde] We are not nouns, we are verbs. We are people who do things. Stay with me here… This amazing building in the centre of #Accrington is destined to be a new heritage centre. Currently in the development phase, thanks to National Lottery Heritage Funding, we are exploring what this building could become, steered by the local community. Inclusion, access & participation at the heart. What I love about this project is how heritage isn’t something to be defined, people determine what their hertiage is (The National Lottery Heritage Fund ‘s own words!) The sentiment of the Oscar Wilde quote keeps coming up in various ways throughout our engagement/consultation work. People are asking for inspiration & examples of great things that have been crafted from their hometown, wondering what they can ‘be’... but they are also asking to have a go, to try new things & learn new skills that connect them to the past. They want to not just visit a new place for one thing or one activity, they want a place that changes with the seasons, offers opportunities they haven’t heard of before & a place they can also just exist and feel part of. ‘If you can’t see it, you can’t be it’ The more conversations we have, the more privileged I feel to be the person curating all the feelings and thoughts together. Some exciting updates about our plans for the year ahead & ways to get involved coming soon! Plus sooo much going on in Accrington in general. Wider Town Square project updates here: https://lnkd.in/ewFBE_hp #heritage #regeneration #accringtontownsquare