Summer Art Camp for youth with incarcerated friends and family members, photo c/o Kentucky Cultural Organizing Alliance.

Creative Placemaking from the Community Up is a national cohort that has included NOCD-NY, LA Commons, Kentucky Cultural Organizing Alliance, Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona, Arts & Democracy, and the Oakland Cultural Affairs Office.

Cutting across a range of issues—from public housing to public health, from transportation to equitable development—we have come together as peers to share deep reservoirs of local experience and knowledge about how to build powerful, arts-based community initiatives. In 2017-2018, the project was supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Activities have included experiential learning through cross sector collaborations, peer exchanges and skill building workshops, participatory planning and cultural mapping, thematic convenings, and presentations at local and national conferences.

Resources created by the cohort include:

Placemaking from the Community Up: Lessons Learned
(click on image to access resource)