Thank you to our partners and colloborators
This toolkit was created in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, Design Division. The creative placemaking field owes deep appreciation to Jen Hughes, director of Design and Creative Placemaking who, for over a decade, has remained steadfast in carrying the Our Town grant program forward and Katherine Bray Simons, Our Town Program Specialist, who has ensured grantees are nurtured during the implementation of their projects. Thank you to The Kresge Foundation for their generous support of LISC Creative Placemaking program. Particularly to Regina R. Smith, Managing Director of Arts and Culture programs, for her leadership in merging community development and arts & culture.
This toolkit is a collective effort of many individuals and practitioners. The framework draws from a curriculum created in 2017/18 by LISC in collaboration with a team of cultural planners and community development workers. This original team was led by cultural planner Craig Dreeszen, Ph.D and a group of amazing individuals including Barbara Shaffer Bacon, co-director of Animating Democracy at Americans for the Arts, Aviva Kapust, executive director of the Village of Arts and Humanities, Melissa Kim, LISC Knowledge Management, and David Ferris, formerly of Philadelphia LISC, now at the Highlander Research and Education Center in Tennessee.
As time unfolded, we began to use pieces of the curriculum in our work with the National Endowment for the Arts and in creative placemaking workshops across the country. We contracted with Lynn Osgood to help us rework the curriculum into a detailed guide and Margy Waller to help us further distill it down into an accessible toolkit. I also acknowledge Bill Taft, Senior Vice President of LISC Economic Development, and Elizabeth Demetriou, National Program Director of LISC Economic Development, for their support and encouragement. Thanks also to the incredible design team at Rainwater Studio and the video team at 41North Studios. And LISCers Nati Taveras, Jordan Carter and Lia Dietrich, who helped to get this toolkit over the finish line. Special thanks to Hanna Leatherman, who added the finishing touches and wonderful prose.
Finally, I want to recognize folks who were integral to the success of the Our Town Technical Assistance Program. First, Rebecca Chan, who for three years, was my amazing colleague and partner in this work, and whose sense of humor, and ability to shift gears, is second to none. And our technical assistance partners at Policy Link, Jeremy Liu and Lorrie Chang, who pushed us all to consider the depth and complexity of art, culture, and equitable community development.
- Lynne McCormack, Senior Officer, Creative Placemaking, June 2021
Lynne McCormack joined LISC as national program director of creative placemaking in 2015. Since that time she has led the integration of arts and culture into community development by creating programs, developing learning networks, providing technical assistance, and working with local LISC offices, leveraging financial resources, including over 24 million dollars in loan funds. Prior to joining LISC she was director of art, culture + tourism in the city of Providence. Serving five mayors, she forged partnerships that resulted in increased funding for artists, designers and organizations through CDBG, HUD, transit and economic development funds and completed the city’s first cultural plan. Ms. McCormack earned her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and continues to employ creative practice and design-based thinking in her work for national LISC.