Community Resources

This CIRD-created document tracks potential funding opportunities and resources for various rural-related community design challenges. It will be updated periodically as new resources are identified.

Springboard for the Arts and the Blandin Foundation offer "Heartland, Heartwork: A Field Guide to Place and Possibility for Rural Leaders." This resource is primarily designed for rural leaders in both formal and informal capacities (community development staff, artists, volunteers, board members, activists, elected officials, etc.)—the people who are starting, managing, or exploring a creative placemaking project in their community.

Created by Main Street America in partnership with the National Parks Service through the Main Street Community Disaster Preparedness and Resilience Program, this publication is designed to help Main Streets and commercial district organizations better prepare for and respond to more frequent and severe disasters.

Source: CIRD’s Building Momentum for Your Long-Term Vision Webinar. Authors: Emily Schmidt and Jun-Li Wang. This resource guide contains resources and examples of successful community design projects and exemplary storytelling.

Since the beginning of the Complete Streets movement in the early 2000s, more than 1,700 Complete Streets policies have been adopted in jurisdictions of all sizes and contexts across the United States. Adopting Complete Streets policies is a crucial first step to reducing traffic violence, improving health equity, responding to the climate crisis, and rectifying a long history of inequitable transportation practices. This Best Complete Streets Policies report spotlights the communities that have

Source:The Citizens' Institute on Rural Design™ The Citizens' Institute on Rural Design™ has assembled a list of planning and design terms to help community members understand the terms used in design charrettes by architects, planners, and designers. This glossary is helpful not only for participants at a workshop or charrette, but also forunderstanding the vocabulary used by the design field.

Source: NET - Nebraska’s PBS and NPR stations Author: New News and Harvest Public Media This panel discussion surveys the key challenges and opportunities facing rural America. Guests present their views about a range of topics, such as the need to diversify rural economies beyond agriculture, how to cope with a declining population, useful strategies for improving local community leadership, and the importance of collaborating with neighboring communities.

Source: National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation Author: Sandy Heierbacher. This guidebook offers easy to understand explanations of key concepts, descriptions of resources and tools, as well as the helpful NCDD Engagement Streams Framework which helps people decide which types of approaches are the best fit for their circumstances.

Source: Project for Public Spaces Author: Jay Walljasper Summary: Transportation benefits our sense of place, and our sense of place benefits transportation. A place-based approach to transportation planning redefines how both transportation and land use planners view their goals.

Source: CIRD’s Models and Practices for Meaningful Community Engagement Webinar. Author: Jaime Horter. This crowdsourced resource guide for creative community engagement was created by participants of a CIRD webinar, Models and Practices for Meaningful Community Engagement, led by rural artist Jamie Horter.

Source: National Governor's Association and National Endowment for the Arts. By leveraging the creative industries, states can deploy proven strategies that help all rural communities to thrive. This action guide is part of a collaborative project between NGA, the National Endowment for the Arts and National Assembly of State Arts Agencies.

Source: Detroit Collaborative Design Center. Author: Ceara O’Leary. Ceara O’Leary draws on the work of the Detroit Collaborative Design Center to demonstrate how the residents of Salmon, Idaho, could undertake a successful process for community engagement (presented at the Salmon, ID rural design workshop).

Source: Place It! Interactive Planning. Author: James Rojas. James Rojas describes his unique Place It! Process of engaging people of all ages, cultures, backgrounds, and ethnicities in visualizing future community places based on childhood memories, and how everyday objects can be used to translate dreams and ideas into reality (presented at the Las Vegas, NM rural design workshop).

Source: Heartland Center for Leadership Development. Author: Milan Wall. Milan Wall discusses strategies for successful public engagement processes centered around effective group discussions, participant input, and best practices for maintaining momentum (presented at the Lincoln, NE rural design workshop).

This document produced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2012 provides policy options that can help rural communities strengthen their economies while preserving rural character. These policies can help rural communities ensure that their development is fiscally sound, environmentally responsible, and socially equitable.

Source: MASS Design Group. The design of our spaces has the power to hurt us or to keep us safe. At MASS Design Group, we have spent the last ten years building new spaces and retrofitting existing buildings to promote infection control, and to support our partners in providing the best patient care possible.

Source: Urban Design Forum and Van Allen Institute. This site has numerous resources and ideas to help neighborhoods rebound after the COVID-19 crisis, directly from urban design experts.

Source: Orton Family Foundation. This guide helps to identify the people and organizations which can either support or be influenced by community projects. It provides a framework for doing a stakeholder analysis, describing how to tap into different demographics in your community, and for making use of the connections among different community groups.

Source: Placemaking Chicago Authors: Project for Public Spaces, Metropolitan Planning Council Chicago Summary: This guidebook is written for anyone who has a stake in the improvement of neighborhoods.

Source: Center for Rural Design University of Minnesota Author: Dewey Thorbeck Summary: Rural areas in North America are undergoing profound demographic, economic, cultural, and environmental change, creating considerable challenges and stress for their residents and on the ecosystems upon which they depend for their livelihoods and quality of life.

Source: Resource Media Author: Sian Wu The Communications Workbook is a simple, step-by-step approach for creating, executing and evaluating a communications strategy. It offers tools and ideas for different approaches, with helpful prompts, worksheets and a substantial glossary of tactics.

Source: Rural Assistance Center Author: Georgia State University, Georgia Health Policy Center. It’s important for communities to situate their projects within a bigger picture when planning around grants and funding. Some foresight and strategy can help to leverage additional funds, and secure long-term viability, rather than recurring dependency.

Source: WalkBoston Authors: Robert Sloane and Wendy Landman Outside of urbanized town centers, many parts of Massachusetts suffer from poor infrastructure for walking, with few sidewalks, a dangerous lack of crosswalks and unattractive streetscaping. Yet, as walking is increasingly recognized as an essential part of healthy living, many residents of rural and low-density suburban areas are seeking opportunities to improve the walking environments in their communities.

Source: The Economic Development Journal Author: N. David Milder, (DANTH, Inc.) and Andrew Dane (Short Elliott Hendrickson Inc.) Studies and best practice about the revitalization of downtowns tends to focus on larger cities. However, there are many challenges which are unique to small towns, and often aren’t recognized or addressed.

Source: The Orton Family Foundation This quick guide takes users through strategies for developing viable partnerships for community planning projects. A strong, healthy partnership between organizations or individuals can bolster resources, talent and energy, although a weak or dysfunctional partnership can just as easily be detrimental to a project.