Orton Family Foundation

Hear how Community Heart & Soul™ offers a way to involve everyone—from business owners to neighbors—in planning and development that leads to lasting results. The bottom line: knowing what a community wants upfront reduces risk for developers, increases investor confidence and makes possibilities happen in a way that benefits community members and investors. Listen to this lively call on how Heart & Soul sparks transformation with Jared Duval, economic development director, Vermont Department of Economic Development and Orton Family Foundation trustee; Daniel Stevenson, director of economic and community development, Biddeford, Maine, and Patrick Wright, executive director, Gardiner Main Street, Gardiner, Maine. Follow along with our collaborative notes: http://bit.ly/1I2bdVp

Achieving community-wide participation is an admirable but challenging goal. Identifying the multiple layers of community can be the difference between success or failure of a project. Orton’s Community Network Analysis (CNA) brings fresh new voices and solutions to the table and is a powerful way to understand who lives, works, and plays in your town and how best to reach them. Alece Montez-Greigo, Orton’s director of programs, explains the tool. Community Heart & Soul project coordinator Alexis Halbert of Paonia, Colorado, and Gabrielle Ratté Smith, senior associate for strategic partnerships at Orton and of Essex, Vermont, join her to share their on-the-ground experience with CNA. Follow along with our Google Doc: http://bit.ly/1w9PKBY

Our communities are constantly changing. Most changes are gradual and predictable—a new store opens on Main Street, newcomers come to town and priorities shift. But, sometimes change is abrupt, unexpected—a major natural disaster or an epidemic. How can your city or town best prepare for unanticipated change? What will help your community respond to challenges not only to bounce back, but to become stronger than ever? Michael Crowley, senior program officer, Institute for Sustainable Communities, and Christine Morris, chief resilience officer with the city of Norfolk, Virginia, join CommunityMatters for an hour-long conference talk to share ideas and lessons learned from building resilient communities. Follow along with our notes here: http://bit.ly/1y40o2A. Photo credit: Martijn de Valk, Flickr Creative Commons, https://flic.kr/p/9xJXrc

We all know the importance of physical health--regular exercise, eating well and good habits help us keep on track with that (most of the time). But how do we exercise our civic health? How do we improve the way we participate in our community? Evan Weissman, executive director, Warm Cookies of the Revolution and Emily Kiehne, graduate assistant, Missouri State University, join CommunityMatters for an hour-long talk about promoting healthy civic life. They share both fun and data-driven approaches to exercising civic health and, in turn, maintaining strong communities. Follow along with our collaborative notes: http://bit.ly/ZUqJBG Photo credit: Warm Cookies of the Revolution

Your town is finally in the digital age with a website, online calendar, and Facebook page. Now you can sit back and relax, right? Not exactly. An array of online tools is available that can take your digital presence to the next level, promoting collaboration between government and citizens, engaging new audiences, and effectively complementing “analog” face-to-face engagement. It’s time for your town to get online and see what’s out there! On this CommunityMatters® conference call you'll dig deeper into digital engagement with experts Alissa Black and Pete Peterson. You’ll learn about online public engagement and which digital tools are right for your town. Follow along with the call notes at http://bit.ly/1qAcco8. Photo Credit: Sebastiaan ter Burg, Flickr Creative Commons, https://flic.kr/p/eqJHbr

Moki Macias and Tramunda Hodges of the Annie E. Casey Foundation join CommunityMatters® for an hour-long conference call on inclusivity. Moki and Tramunda share their experience with promoting equal treatment and opportunity in community decision-making at the Foundation's Atlanta Civic Site. Follow along with the call notes: bit.ly/1q1clCE. Image credit: Brian Talbot, Flickr CC License, https://flic.kr/p/mU9dq.

On this CommunityMatters® conference call, Felisa Conner of the Office of Neighborhood Vitality in Garland, Texas talks about building and sustaining vital neighborhoods. Councilman Scott LeMay of Garland, a graduate of the city's Neighborhood Management Academy and former President of the Camelot Neighborhood Association joins her. Felisa and Councilman LeMay share tools and strategies for neighborhood management - ways to foster collaboration and build capacity to develop and realize neighborhood vision and goals. Access the call notes at: http://bit.ly/1eP9F1k Photo credit: Lafayette College Flickr Creative Commons License flickr.com/photos/lafayette-college/4990251511

Slow internet stinks. It kills business growth, hinders education, impedes health care services, and generally just makes life a little less enjoyable. But what can you do? Aren’t we all just stuck with the service we’ve got? What if there was a solution that offered fast, affordable and reliable internet service, while benefiting your community and your economy? This, my friend, is what Community Broadband Networks have to offer. On this CommunityMatters® conference call, Christopher Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Billy Ray of Glasgow Electric Plant Board join us to talk about Community Broadband Networks, publicly-owned providers of high-speed internet. Listen to the recording to learn about the benefits of community broadband along with tips for getting started with a network in your city or town. Find the notes for this call at http://bit.ly/1nUflvd. Photo credit: Sebastiaan ter Burg Flickr Creative Commons License http://flickr.com/photos/ter-burg/8823162570

What’s the difference between a plan that’s put into place and one that’s put on a shelf? People. If you want something to show for your hard work, you need to build strong local leadership and grassroots support. This webinar will focus on how to grow effective local leaders who can nurture volunteers, corral resources and build the public support that can move community design or planning work from paper to practice. Join Milan Wall from the Heartland Center for Leadership Development to learn about their research on keys to thriving communities and effective leadership. Milan will describe characteristics of effective local leaders, roles and responsibilities to guide community action, and tips for recruiting new leaders in a changing world. This webinar is part of a capacity-building series offered jointly by CommunityMatters and the Citizens’ Institute on Rural Design. To view the visual components of this presentation, please visit https://vimeo.com/86720109. Photo credit: UN Women Gallery Flickr

You’ve got the great ideas and a plan for moving forward, but let’s face it: Your community lacks the cash it needs to make it real. This call focuses on key sources of funding (including federal funding, grants, and crowdsourcing) and resources to help make design and development projects in small towns, rural areas, and neighborhoods happen. Our speakers also cover strategies for creating successful funding pitches and positioning your project for funding applications. Featuring: Cynthia M. Adams of GrantStation, Erin Barnes of ioby and Jen Hughes from the National Endowment for the Arts. Call notes online at http://bit.ly/1eviiPl. Photo credit: Flickr user emdot, Creative Commons License

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:

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