Creative placemaking is a collaborative, creative process—but it works best when it has good legal scaffolding.
Clear contracting and agreements helps all the parties understand their responsibilities and can help to formalize good partnerships for the future. There’s no singular way to structure a creative placemaking project, but contracts, MOUs and legal agreements each come with best practices that anyone can use to ensure all parties have the full potential to engage in the project ahead.
As you select collaborators and structure the legal and financial mechanisms that form the backbone of your project, use the resources below to help you understand which legal documents will help you best define your work together.
Things to consider:
✔ Does each partner need/have a lawyer?
✔ Who are the partners/parties to the contract(s)?
✔ What are the partners’ responsibilities?
✔ What are the partners’ goals and how are they expressed in the agreement?
✔ What is the budget?
✔ Who decides on spending? Who is the fiscal agent?
✔ What happens if there is a loss or surplus?
✔ How is communication handled?
✔ What if partners disagree?
Contracts are one of the most important parts of a creative placemaking project. Through the contracting process, we are really able to establish the roles and responsibilities for everyone who’s invested in seeing a creative placemaking initiative take root. Therefore, in order to do any sort of creative placemaking work, you’re going to be working in partnership with other groups and individuals. These different stakeholders will possess a range of expertise and vary from large arts organizations with lawyers and a robust endowment to local nonprofits with a very little contract experience. With that being said, contracts really help stakeholders of varying sizes and expertise to establish not only what they are going to do together, but to both define specifically all facets of the partnership and set the outcomes that the community wants to see.
WATCH:
Formalizing Partnerships
Creative placemaking is a collaborative, creative process. But it works best when it’s got good legal scaffolding. This helps all the parties understand their responsibilities and can also help to formalize all the good partnership agreements you make at the beginning of your project. For this video, Stephanie Fortunato, the director of Art, Culture and Tourism and Adrienne Southgate, deputy city solicitor, both from the city of Providence will describe how they employ contracts to protect both artists, government entities, and community members from legal consequences.
DO YOU NEED A MEMORANDUM OF UNDERSTANDING FOR YOUR PARTNERSHIP?
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Additional Resources
Curated for you by the LISC team, the resources below provide models of best practice, insights from our Resource Team, and other extras we hope will be useful to you as you navigate your creative placemaking projects.
WATCH:
Formalizing Partnership Contracts, MOUs & Agreements
What does a contract for a performance or public art installation look like? When and how should a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) be used? This webinar will offer complementary perspectives on how to structure contracts and MOUs that will set expectations and accountability for all parties involved while also allowing room for creativity and flexibility in the process and end product.