Exploring Our Town

Exploring Our Town is a website from the National Endowment for the Arts that aims to give community leaders essential guidance and inspiration in their arts-based community development work.

The NEA's Our Town program provides a limited number of grants for creative placemaking projects that contribute towards the livability of communities and help transform them into "lively, beautiful, and resilient places with the arts at their core." Divided into two sections, Project Showcase and Project Insights, Exploring Our Town offers practical information gleaned from the experiences of those who have successfully completed Our Town projects.

The Project Showcase has more than 65 case studies from across the country, each with specifics about the place, the local needs, the vision, the logistics, the outcomes and more. The showcase is searchable by project setting, type and location.

The Project Insights gather lessons learned from Our Town projects managers on how to do a successful creative placemaking project. Ideas are sorted in subcategories of project process, project setting and project type.

Exploring Our Town