Establishing shared values is the first step.
The key to establishing these values is honest communication between partners. From there, you're on your way to executing a creative placemaking project that will yield mutually beneficial partnership and open doors to new forms of collaboration. Through intentional meetings, workshops, and even informal conversations about what inspires and drives each other’s work, artists and community members can then develop common goals and metrics for evaluating project outcomes.
Things to consider:
Projects are more likely to be considered successful when the partners understand individual values and agree on the shared values in the beginning.
✔ What’s the group of operating values that you will come back to again and again?
✔ What are your individual values and goals?
✔ What values do you bring to the work? Your organization? The community?
✔ Where are we aligned?
✔ What will make this project a successful one for us, collectively?
✔ What will we fall back on when we hit a bump in the road?
How do you set common goals and create a shared vision for your project early on with local partners? It is necessary to define relationships, roles and responsibilities when embarking on a creative placemaking project.
"Healing and repair is going to require collective dreaming. It does take time, you have to slow down, to get everyone to the same rhythm."
—Mark Valdez, Our Town Technical Assistance Resource Team Member
WATCH:
Developing Partnerships & Shared Values
Projects are more likely to be considered successful when the partners understand individual values and agree on the shared values in the beginning. What’s the group of operating values that you will come back to again and again? What are your individual values and goals? In this video, Cheyenne River Youth Project’s director, Julie Garreau, discusses how shared values positively impact creative placemaking work.
Integrity amongst stakeholders
Shared values amongst collaborators act as a moral guide for creative placemaking projects which incentivizes organizational integrity and individual accountability with regards to the work done for said project. After agreeing upon these values, taking inventory of each stakeholder’s workload capacity, cultural experience, and various skills applicable to the creative placemaking project will drastically improve workflow towards project completion. Throughout the project, there should be moments of evaluation to measure how closely the shared values are being adhered to and how certain processes could be redone to produce more effective results for the community.
VALUES EXERCISE
→ Download the worksheet
What group of operating values that you will come back to again and again? What are your individual values and goals?
Creating a "community-engaged" project is an iterative process, where one discovers community resources, interests, and needs before an idea is proposed, then works in partnership with stakeholders to test and refine the approach throughout the project’s implementation. With shared values as your north star, this co-creative process will allow you to respond to community needs as they change over the course of a project, building trust and confidence among partners.
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.
READ:
Let's Talk About Our Shared Values, Art on the Streets
Art on the Streets supports artists and arts organizations as they work in public to “address community planning and equitable development goals.” Developed over a year of research and dialogue with practitioners, this discussion guide on Shared Values is designed to support creative placemakers as they convene partners and work toward a shared understanding of projects’ underlying values and goals.
ENGAGE:
Tending Our Roots, Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development
This growing archive catalogues places of belonging in AAPI America, the culminating effor of an Our Town Knowledge Building grant focused on identifying and disseminating values, best practices, and case studies from AAPI community development and creative placemaking work happening around the country. Available in eight languages, Tending Our Roots is an essential source for any community organization. Be sure to check out their values statements!
This material emerged from a past Our Town Knowledge Building project. Through the Our Town Knowledge Building program, the NEA has invested in community development and arts membership organizations to build out knowledge on how to do creative placemaking.
Creative Placemaking Values: A Guide for Practitioners, Funders and Evaluators
This interactive guide walks you and your partners through exercises designed to aid you in defining community relationships, working together, setting goals, and assessing your work—all topics essential for facilitating successful projects from beginning to end. The guide was developed during Creative Placemaking Leadership Summits and in conversation with colleagues from research partners at Arizona State University’s Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, ArtPlace America, The Kresge Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
WATCH:
Laying the Foundation
Partnerships are crucial to increasing resources, building capacity, and scaling impact. But, how do you plan and prepare for successful collaboration? In this session from the November 2020 Learning Lab for Our Town Grantees, Irfana Jetha Noorani, former deputy director of the 11th Street Bridge Park and now a practicing public art consultant, provides guidance on developing shared values, group operating values and individual values and goals. Lynne McCormack, LISC Senior Program Officer for Creative Placemaking will also provide practical tips from the How to Do Creative Placemaking curriculum.