Local Sustainability Matching Fund Announced

The Funders’ Network for Smart Growth, in partnership with the Urban Sustainability Directors Fund, announces the launch of the Local Sustainability Matching Fund.

The purpose of the Matching Fund is to catalyze partnerships between local government (city or county) sustainability directors and local, place-based foundations to advance important community-based sustainability initiatives. The Matching Fund is intended both to support significant urban sustainability projects and to build bridges between public sector sustainability leaders and local foundations. The Fund will provide matching investments from national foundations on a competitive basis to build partnerships between sustainability directors and local place-based foundations to advance discrete sustainability initiatives that demonstrate broad-based community support and engagement.

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Upcoming webinar: Navigating Change: Running Effective Community and Coalition Meetings

Building sustainable communities involves engaging people in meetings to set a vision, agree upon goals, manage projects, and build relationships that will carry forward. Often—even with people who agree with what we are hoping to create—these meetings aren’t as effective as we’d like: they go off topic, we get mired in a particular issue, or we get overwhelmed by the number of decisions we need to make. In many cases, these meetings are interrupted by or taken over by those who are uncomfortable with our work, or might not understand the benefits of creating healthier, more sustainable communities.

Navigating Change, presented by facilitator and community sustainability consultant Odin Zackman, will walk you through the basics of designing an effective community or coalition meeting, provide facilitation tips and techniques, and offer interventions that can help keep public meetings on track. We’ll also reserve time for questions and a “community meeting clinic” where your stories and challenges can serve as case studies for all participants.

In preparation for this webinar, please fill out a brief survey to share your expectations. This will help design a session that addresses the questions and challenges you face that tend to be common to many communities.

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Spotlight on Sustainability: Northern and Down East Maine

The following is based on an interview with Ryan Pelletier, Director of Workforce Development, Northern Maine Development Commission

Faced with economic distress, outmigration, soaring unemployment, and numbers of low-income and underrepresented populations well over the national average, two counties in Northern and Down East Maine began searching for solutions. Aroostook and Washington counties, the two largest and poorest in Maine, recently joined together to form one Economic Development District. Combining eleven groups that represent the population of 104,175, the region was awarded a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Regional Planning grant through the federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities.

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Take action: Partnership for Sustainable Communities in Real Danger

The U.S. House of Representatives just stripped funding for the federal Partnership for Sustainable Communities. The Senate will consider funding for the Partnership next Thursday. NOW is the time to tell your Senators to maintain funding for this important program.

These are tough economic times, which makes it even more important to keep the innovative programs that put federal dollars to good use rebuilding our local economies, strengthening our communities, and creating necessary jobs.

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Spotlight on Sustainability: Tampa, Florida

Q&A with Randy Goers, Urban Planning Coordinator for the City of Tampa, Florida, Land Development Coordination Division (HUD Community Challenge Grant Recipient) and Smart Growth America.

Smart Growth America: What is the goal of this project?
Randy Goers: The objective of our project is to establish a vision for development in and around downtown, as well as to develop a plan for growth around a major transportation corridor. Like many communities that have grown significantly in recent years, we’ve been reacting to growth and approving it as it comes in. We’re pretty much built out, so new development will be along our corridors. Numerous agencies have to be a part of the approval process, which slows it down and adds costs. In some instances, the added time and costs can be substantial. Then there is also conflict when new development bumps against preexisting residential or historic neighborhoods.

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"Advocacy Training 201" webinar materials now available online

Thank you to everyone who attended Smart Growth America’s Sustainable Communities Network webinar earlier this week, “Advocacy Training 201.” Telling Members of Congress about your projects and the benefits of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities is a crucial part of supporting these valuable federal programs.

Christopher Coes, Manager of LOCUS, provided additional training on how to talk about your project, The Partnership for Sustainable Communities, and Member of Congress meetings. The webinar also included a simulated in-district meeting with a Member of Congress, which can be viewed below.

As we’ve mentioned before, August recess is one of the best times to meet with your member of Congress (or their staff) to discuss the importance of the Partnership on the ground in your community and to our nation as a whole. To help you make these meetings happen, we have a toolkit available on the Partnership Blog and we are more than happy to assist you with scheduling or provide more infomation. Please contact Melissa Schreiber-Stahl at mschreiberstahl [at] smartgrowthamerica [dot] org with questions or to request scheduling help.

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Additional materials now available: Applying for HUD Regional Planning Grants

On July 14, Smart Growth America along with the American Planning Association hosted a webinar that provided tips for organizations interested in applying for the next round of HUD Regional Planning Grants. The webinar included discussion from past Partnership for Sustainable Communities grant recipients, advice from a firm that has written several successful applications, and information about criteria that the Partnership uses to grade applications. Presentations from the webinar are also available.

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Spotlight on Sustainability: Kansas City, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri

The following is based on an interview with Tom Gerend, Assistant Director of Transportation, Mid-America Regional Council

While anyone who is involved in regional planning can appreciate the difficulties of trying to work across multiple local jurisdictions, Kansas City faces a unique set of challenges. Kansas City lies on the border of Missouri and Kansas, which means the Kansas City Transit Corridors and Green Impact Zone TIGER (Transportation Invesment Generating Economic Recovery) grant, by the U.S. Department of Transportation, is working across not just city and county lines, but state lines as well. That makes the project complex, but also rich with opportunity because numerous streams of federal revenue can be tapped to focus on one region.

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Webinar: Federal Transit Administration 2011 Funding Opportunities

The FTA Office of Program Management is holding a webinar tomorrow, Friday, July 8, 2011 on how to find and apply for 2011 funding opportunities, including the Bus Livability program. Other programs that will be discussed include Alternative Analysis, State of Good Repair, Clean Fuels, and Transit Investments for Greenhouse Gas and Energy Reduction (TIGGER).

The webinar will be held in two sessions:

East Coast participants (FTA Regions 1-5) can register here for a 10:30 – 12:00pm ET webinar.
West Coast participants (FTA Regions 6-10) can register here for a 1:00 – 2:30pm ET webinar.

Registration details will be sent to registrants. Find more information here.

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