Orton Family Foundation

After a design or planning process, most communities end up with scores of potential actions. How do you prioritize dozens of competing options? How do you get some cool stuff done without breaking the bank or exhausting your list of volunteers? Easy: start with the petunias. That’s one key lesson from the “Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper” framework.

Listen to this call and learn how to find the easiest, quickest and most impactful ways to start making things happen in your town.

Find call notes online at http://bit.ly/17wfYJ0.

Photo credit: Flickr user Benicchio

Public spaces bring our cities and towns to life – they’re where we gather with friends, take breaks from the office and bask in the sunshine on a warm summer day. But much of the public realm is lifeless and overly utilitarian. Wouldn’t it be nice if parking lots could make you smile, or if transit stops were so fun that you sort of hope the bus will be late?

On this CommunityMatters conference call recording, you’ll hear from Mike Lanza of Playborhood and Brian Corrigan of Oh Heck Yeah. They’re working on creative placemaking strategies to turn ordinary places into fun-filled ones. Listen in for great ideas on making your city or town a more playful place.

Find call notes online at http://bit.ly/1808U5S.

Photo credit: Flickr user Mr T in DC.

No one loves typical public meetings where the only opportunity for interaction is a quick and dirty two minutes at the microphone. What can we do to change that? It turns out there are dozens of ways to make community engagement more playful, and playfulness makes engagement more fruitful.

On this CommunityMatters® conference call you’ll hear from James Rojas of Place It! and Chris Haller of Urban Interactive Studio. They challenge the notion that public discourse and decision-making can’t be fun. Listen to this call to learn how to infuse civic life with play.

Please bear with the sound quality issues during James' introduction. They clear up around minute 10.

Access online notes at http://bit.ly/1fOp2dh.

Is your block losing its luster? Whether vacant storefronts, unsafe streets, weedy lots or seedy strips hinder your neighborhood, Better Block offers solutions for building a better place.

Better Block began as a weekend-long project in one Dallas neighborhood (think Extreme Home Makeover on steroids). Now it’s taking the country by storm. Using temporary demonstrations to test out pop-up businesses, create more inviting public spaces and add life to a tired block, Better Block projects transform scruffy, underused streets into vibrant and walkable places. These locally driven demonstration projects bring neighbors together to envision and experience an area’s potential.

Learn about Better Blocks and how they are catalyzing revitalization in communities across the country on this CommunityMatters® conference call recording. The call features insight from Andrew Howard of Team Better Block, Elena Traister of Eagle Street Rising and Lynee Wells of Better Block re:State.

Find the call notes online at http://bit.ly/1eLskA5.

Photo credit: Jerry Olson via Flickr.

Last year Barbara Walters asked four billionaires for their Top 20 Secrets of Success. The number two secret? "Always be True to Yourself." It turns out that applies to communities, too. Join national thought leader Ed McMahon of the Urban Land Institute for an inspirational conversation. On this recording, Ed shares seven secrets of successful communities that he has gleaned over the course of decades working in towns across the country.

Find our call notes at http://bit.ly/19MLh3d.

If you want your project to truly succeed, it must reflect the vision and values of the community. But that’s easier said than done. Listen to this call recording to confirm and deepen your understanding of a community’s vision and values, learn how to use that understanding to inform design projects and a range of issues facing communities today, and hear strategies from folks who have succeeded in designing for the vision and values of their community.

This call is part of a capacity building series offered jointly by CommunityMatters and the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design.

Access call notes online at http://bit.ly/11iaOXA.

Psst!! How do you start the buzz about a community design project and get people to participate? Listen to this recording to learn about spreading the word in your town, including tips and tools for working with local press, developing project messaging, and preparing an effective communications plan.

Our speakers on this call were Amy Frykman, Vice President at Resource Media and Fran Stoddard, Communications Consultant at the Orton Family Foundation.

This call is part of a capacity building series offered jointly by CommunityMatters and the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design.

Access call notes online at http://bit.ly/18OT1NV

In a nutshell, civic infrastructure consists of the opportunities, activities and arenas—both online and face-to-face—that allow people to connect with each other, solve problems, make decisions and celebrate community. By strengthening civic infrastructure, a community can become a more prosperous, vibrant place to live. But what does strong civic infrastructure look like on the ground? How do you know how much of it your town has? Or needs? How can you and your town start to build it? What are other communities doing that’s been successful?

In this call, you'll hear from Sandy Heierbacher from NCDD as well as two practitioners working to build civic infrastructure on the ground - Patricia Sears of Newport City Renaissance Corporation and Janice Thomson, a public engagement consultant in Chicago.

Notes, including speaker introductions, are available online at: bit.ly/ZhBwPU.

Cynthia Nikitin of Project for Public Spaces answers questions about the Citizens' Institute on Rural Design RFP and application process.

Recorded on February 28, 2013.

This call will help you think through critical steps in shaping a successful CIRD application or any community-centered design project. You'll get tips and resources for building partnerships, involving a diverse cross-section of the community, and designing a project that fits with local values and priorities.

Featuring Ariana McBride, Senior Associate at the Orton Family Foundation and Shelley Mastran, former Co-Director, Citizens' Institute on Rural Design