National Volunteer Week is April 19-25. Tips on celebrating your volunteers here: http://www.pointsoflight.org/programs/seasons/nvw/
MAY 14-16 : ARKANSAS PRESERVATION CONFERENCE, EUREKA SPRINGS (next quarterly training – details to follow)
SEPTEMBER 14-16: DESTINATION DOWNTOWN, EL DORADO
Main Street Arkansas Calendar March 23 - 27, 2009
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MONDAY
TUESDAY HB1953 Signing Ceremony; Greg, Mark – Hardy
WEDNESDAY Mark – Blytheville; Susan, annual
THURSDAY Susan, annual
FRIDAY Susan, annual
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IN THIS ISSUE:
MSA Wins Henry Award
State Preservation Tax Credit Passes
Arkansas DeltaMade Press
OutdoorGrants.com
Good Main Street Rogers Press
Farmers Market Grant Opportunity
NTHP Conference Diversity Scholarship
Small Town, Big Ideas (thanks Denisa Pennington)
Main Street Arkansas Wins Henry Award:
http://www.arkindustryinsider.com/announcements/detail.asp?id=51
PASSED! HB1953, the State Historic Preservation Tax Credit
The state preservation tax credit passed! There will be a signing ceremony at 1:15 tomorrow (Tuesday) in State Capitol Room 250. We hope to have a big crowd. If you haven’t already, please let me know if you’re attending. I’m trying to coordinate travel as parking can be challenging.
Arkansas DeltaMade Press:
http://clintonschoolblog.com/cblog/?p=1104
- DeltaMade is a project of the RHDI which we were a founding partner & evolved from an idea in our 2004 Delta Initiative report (pg. 28)
Nice Website I learned about at the Governor’s Conference:
http://www.outdoorgrants.com/
Good Main Street Rogers Press:
http://www.recordtimes.com/rhtn/News/4938/
Farmers Market Grant Opportunity
The USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) invites proposals for the 2009 Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP) grant program. The Notice of Funds Available for the FMPP was published in the Federal Register on March 13, 2009. This is the fourth year of the FMPP grant program, which is authorized under the recently amended Farmer-to-Consumer Direct Marketing Act of 1976.
AMS will award approximately $5 million in competitive funds for FMPP in Fiscal Year 2009. FMPP grants are available at levels not less than $2,500 and not more than $100,000; no matching funds are required. Proposal submitted for funding should be designed to assist in promoting, expanding, and improving domestic farmers markets, roadside stands, community-supported agriculture programs, agritourism activities, and other direct producer-to-consumer market opportunities.
Eligible entities for the 2009 FMPP grants include agricultural cooperatives, producer networks, producer associations, local governments, non-profit organizations, public benefit corporations, economic development corporations, regional farmers, market authorities, and Tribal governments to consider developing proposals for this grant program. Eligible entities must be owned, operated, and located within one or more of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia. Individuals are not eligible to apply.
Applications must be submitted to AMS and postmarked by April 27, 2009. For information on applying for FMPP grant funds, please visit our website: www.ams.usda.gov/fmpp
NTHP Diversity Scholarship Program
Since 1992, the Diversity Scholarship Program (DSP) has provided financial assistance to individuals from diverse racial, ethnic, economic and cultural backgrounds. The goal of the Diversity Scholarship Program is to increase the diversity of participants at the annual National Preservation Conference on October 13-17, 2009 in Nashville, TN. The Program provides financial assistance to approximately 60 community leaders from diverse social, economic, racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds to attend the National Preservation Conference.
The National Trust seeks culturally diverse applicants whose attendance at the Conference will benefit their communities and whose commitment to historic preservation will be reinforced by their participation. Recipients will have an opportunity to express their perspectives during the Conference and to take advantage of National Trust programs after the Conference.
Applications for the 2009 conference are available now! Apply online by clicking here. Questions? Please contact the Diversity Scholarship Program at conference@nthp.org.
thanks to Denisa Pennington of AEDC for passing this along
Small Town, Big Ideas
The report includes 45 case studies of small towns across the United States that are using a wide range of community and economic development strategies to advance their communities' vision for prosperity. The entire report can be downloaded from www.cednc.unc.edu/stbi.
According to the study, seven themes emerged that offer take-away lessons for other communities hoping to learn from small towns with big ideas. Those include:
1. In small towns, community development is economic development. Communities that incorporate economic and broader, longer-term, community development goals stand to gain more than small towns that take a piecemeal approach.
2. Small towns with the most dramatic outcomes tend to be proactive and future-oriented; they embrace change and assume risk. Being proactive (as opposed to reactive) can be measured by a small town's willingness and ability to act on a particular challenge before it becomes a problem.
3. Successful community economic development strategies are guided by a broadly held local vision. Case after case has demonstrated that people (as opposed to money or other resources) are the one absolutely necessary ingredient to successful development. A committed group of local residents who are willing to work hard for their community's interests can change the fate of an otherwise hopeless community.
4. Defining assets and opportunities broadly can yield innovative strategies that capitalize on a community's competitive advantage. Assets for small town development might include individual people, nonprofit organizations, businesses, open space, farms, parks, landfills (biomass), museums, schools, historic architecture, local attitudes or any number of other things.
5. Innovative local governance, partnerships and organizations significantly enhance the capacity for community economic development. The key to innovative local governance is to think creatively, but always keep the community's overall net benefits in mind. Regionalism and partnerships beyond municipal boundaries can help small towns to pool resources toward shared objectives.
6. Effective communities identify, measure and celebrate short-term successes to sustain support for long-term community economic development. Leaders in small towns must repeatedly make the case for the importance of their efforts to maintain momentum, invigorate volunteers and donors, convince skeptics and, most importantly, keep the focus on the vision or the goals established in a community's strategic plan.
7. Viable community economic development involves the use of a comprehensive package of strategies and tools, rather than a piecemeal approach. Successful development in small towns is always multifaceted. Successful communities tend to have evolved to the point where they have a comprehensive package of strategies and tools that are aligned with the core assets, challenges and opportunities with their regional context.
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