Foundation launches a series of white papers to help grantmakers, practitioners find Creative Placemaking successes
Press Release – Lessons from The Kresge Foundation’s journey to Creative Placemaking – the integration of arts, culture and resident-engaged design into community development and planning – are highlighted a series of white papers launched recently by foundation’s Arts & Culture Program.
The papers are geared toward helping grantmakers and Creative Placemaking practitioners more successfully integrate arts and culture into community development.
Kresge’s Arts & Culture Program, entering its seventh year of funding Creative Placemaking activities in urban, low-income neighborhoods, has partnered with allies from different fields and sectors to author five papers, sharing learnings and observations from the field.
The goal is to illuminate the foundation’s approach to grantmaking, share lessons learned, identify challenges and opportunities encountered, and encourage conversations among peer grantmakers and Creative Placemaking practitioners.
The Kresge Foundation’s unique niche in the Creative Placemaking field is its commitment to influence community development-related systems and practices that expand opportunities for residents in America’s disinvested urban communities.
The first paper – The Kresge Foundation Arts & Culture Program: The First Decade, traces the evolution of the program – from decades of providing capital challenge grants, to capitalization and community arts, and finally the current Creative Placemaking strategy.
“This paper illuminates how Kresge arrived at the current Creative Placemaking strategy,” said Regina R. Smith, managing director of the foundation’s Arts & Culture Program. “Through this series, we hope our experiences will help peer funders, community organizations, development professionals and others better navigate their own journeys to impactful, locally-driven integration of arts, culture and design into community development.”
The remaining papers will be published during the course of 2018, addressing:
- Neighborhood change and tracking progress
- Equitable outcomes and systemic change
- Financing Creative Placemaking
- Arts & culture and local anchor strategies
Additional Creative Placemaking links and resources from partners including ArtPlace America, and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) are available at the Kresge white papers web page.
