creative placemaking links:

The ABCD Institute (Asset Based Community Development): “Building community capacity is at the heart of ABCD’s work. ABCD Institute Faculty engage directly with community groups to support their asset-based community development efforts. Faculty also participate in an array of local, regional, and international conferences and workshops as keynote speakers, workshop and training facilitators, technical support providers, and learning participants.

Center for Community Progress “helps people turn empty spaces into vibrant places”. “We envision a future where all people live in strong, healthy, just communities where widespread vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties no longer exist. Our mission is to foster strong, equitable communities where vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated properties are transformed into assets for neighbors and neighborhoods.”

Creative City South is a South African “non-profit which profiles storytelling, runs projects and provides consultancy to advance notions around urban cultural governance for sustainable, inclusive, generative and just cities in the Global South.”

Creative Communities International (CCI) was established in 2002 by David Engwicht and Dr Ingrid Burkett as an incubator for social innovations. In 2011 Jodi Stojanov, a highly regarded sociologist, joined the team. CCI has invented whole new approaches to revitalising town centres, agile placemaking, community engagement, creative thinking, traffic management, and urban planning.

Creative Placemaking Communities: Creative Placemaking Communities helps places become more sustainable, prosperous, equitable, healthy and resilient by supporting people who believe in the power of local arts and culture to shape communities.

The Creative Placemaking Resource Hub “is a living archive of creative placemaking scholarship and practice, designed for the students, teachers, artists, and community leaders who move the field forward.”

Creative Placemaking Resources focuses on funding opportunities. “This guide contains a wide array of federal funding resources that go beyond typical arts grants to encompass various aspects of creative placemaking.”

The Goldin Institute: “Since 2002, the Goldin Institute has worked in over 50 countries to build grassroots partnerships for global change that are rooted in the power of communities working together to build their own solutions and determine their own futures. We help communities achieve their goals through a combination of online and on the ground initiatives to help grassroots leaders address a wide range of issues facing their communities such as poverty alleviation, gender empowerment, environmental sustainability and conflict resolution.”

The National Endowment for the Arts has an extensive list of resources for creative placemakers in the United States. This includes study guides, funding opportunities, and their Our Town Knowledge Building program.

Neato Design Co LLC: After painting a few dozen murals with my husband around Enid, Oklahoma, and beyond, I’ve started designing neato metal art and site amenities for trails, parks, and downtowns – all with the purpose of connecting people to places! I’m also excited to be an Oklahoma distributor of Freenotes Harmony Park and Sonic Architecture outdoor musical instruments! Working with these companies and local metal workers, we can provide all kinds of neato things to help activate your place!

Neighbor Power: Jim Diers is a speaker, facilitator, author and activator assisting associations and agencies in support of caring, inclusive and powerful communities.

Placemaking.Education is a collaboration between Town Team Movement and PlacemakingX.

“Over 3,450 people from 114 countries have taken a course or downloaded a resource since it launched in 2022. Our purpose is to:

Gather and curate the most important placemaking concepts, suggestions and lessons learned into one place to make it easier and faster for people to learn about placemaking
Refine, democratise and deepen the knowledge base
Promote the inclusive, collaborative and people-centred spirit and intent of placemaking as it was first conceptualised
Focus particularly on the WHO, WHY and HOW of placemaking
Accelerate the growth of the placemaking movement”

PlacemakingUS “is a national network organized to unleash community power to build living, interconnected places together. Through our “United Streets of America” program, we prioritize working with frontline communities that have been uprooted and looted by destructive urban planning, auto-oriented development, racist policies and unequal investment.” PlacemakingUS Group is their Facebook group, a wonderful place to network.

PlacemakingX is “a network of placemaking thought leaders, public space activists, regional network leaders, and professionals from all over the world. We have diverse experiences and backgrounds but share a common purpose. PlacemakingX is currently formed by 100+ leaders and 1,500+ advocates from 85+ countries around the world.”

Project for Public Places has helped over 3,500 communities across 50 countries and all 50 U.S. states imagine their futures and meet their needs through public space. From our early days in 1975, building upon the research of William H. Whyte, we have grown into the go-to resource for placemaking as an approach to designing and managing public spaces with the people who use them every day. This blog post has a list of contacts in Latin America.

other sites we like:

The Association of Camerados (AoC) is the small merry band of folk based in a shed, who passionately believe that we can all be camerados, they support the movement by inspiring people to be camerados through art, stories, resources and speaking at places as diverse as large conferences to chats in a village hall.

The American Craft Council: a national nonprofit working to keep craft artists and the community connected, inspired, and thriving.

Artistic Artifacts is a creative resource for fabric, fiber, and mixed media art products sold online and in our shop in Alexandria, VA. We carry a wide selection of fabrics for the sewing and quilting enthusiast — modern quilting cottons, Australian Aborigine-designs, Indian, Indonesian and African prints, hand dyed and so much more — along with a variety of notions and sewing supplies. You will also find a wide selection of art supplies, and vintage finds.

Artsy Shark: Marketing and sales tips, inspiration, out-of-the-box ideas and opportunities to grow as a creative entrepreneur. Artsy Shark has regular artist features and many other opportunities on the site.

ATADA (Authentic Tribal Art Dealers): an association of tribal arts dealers, auction houses, museums and collectors dedicated to establishing and maintaining the highest standards of ethics and integrity.

Black Farmers Index: The largest, FREE, most comprehensive *directory of Black Farmers, The Index connects you to traditional and non-traditional growers.

Craft Industry Alliance: Our mission is to be a trusted source of industry information, creative inspiration, and community for craft professionals. (Make sure to look up their excellent list of resources when you are on their site!)

Artizan Made is a member there and we love all of the work that they do to make our community stronger and more informed. We encourage you to become a member, too, and if you use the links here (intro or banner), we will get a small percentage of your membership fee as a thank you for the referral.

Exquisite Uterus Art of Resistance Project: A feminist art project with over 200 contributions by creatives who used the act of embellishing a line drawing of a uterus on plain cloth to articulate their outrage at restrictions to women’s full access to good sexual and reproductive health care.

Fair Trade Federation: The Fair Trade Federation is a trade association of fair trade enterprises fully committed to equitable and sustainable trading partnerships.

Fashion Revolution: A global fashion industry that conserves and restores the environment and values people over growth and profit.

Fibershed: a non-profit organization that develops equity-focused regional and land regenerating natural fiber and dye systems. Our work expands opportunities to implement climate beneficial agriculture, rebuild regional manufacturing, and connect end-users to the source of our fiber through direct educational offerings. We are transforming the economic and ecologic systems that clothe us to generate equitable and climate change ameliorating textile cultures.

The Flowers Are Burning: A traveling art exhibition and collaborative environmental project. It urges each of us to take immediate action in whatever way we are able, to alleviate the damage of climate change.

Green America harnesses economic power—the strength of consumers, investors, businesses, and the marketplace—to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society.

Handmade to Market is a business support program that offers education, resources, and community for artisan businesses.

Indie Sellers Guild exists to promote the interests of online sellers of handmade, unique, vintage and craft goods all over the world. The ISG seeks to harness the power inherent in our vast numbers, to grow it and to put it to work for all independent online sellers.

indie untangled is your home for hand-dyed yarns and handmade fiber craft accessories. Shop exclusives from our partners and be the first to know what’s new and in stock from your favorite indie dyers, designers and makers!

Maiwa: Excellent source for dyes, Indian textiles and workshops. Maiwa was founded by Charllotte Kwon in 1986. They run a retail store on Granville Island in the heart of Vancouver, along with a School of Textiles, a Foundation, and a substantial online presence. They work primarily with artisans in India.

MANOfestum is an ARTS & CRAFTS directory website. We collect online and in-person courses, classes, workshops, patterns&tutorials from all around the world.

The National Civic League has created The All-America Conversations Toolkit which contains a wealth of resources and tips that can be applied to any kind of engagement effort. These conversations focus on the small, specific actions that give people a sense of confidence that can bridge dividing lines to create stronger, more equitable communities.

Resist & Build emerged in 2020 during the pandemic, beginning as a series of online gatherings to foster collaboration among national organizations committed to systems change. Recognizing the urgency of systemic crises, the process aimed to align movements and strategies for building solidarity economies, advancing justice, and challenging the structural roots of inequality.

Social Justice Sewing Academy: SJSA envisions a world where textile art is a catalyst for raising awareness of local and national issues affecting marginalized communities. With each project, SJSA bridges the differences between age, race, and socioeconomic status to facilitate conversations about and encourage action toward social justice issues in households across the country. (Based in California, USA)

Studio Art Quilt Associates: Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc. (SAQA) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the art quilt: “a creative visual work that is layered and stitched or that references this form of stitched layered structure.”

Surface Design Association (SDA): to promote awareness and appreciation of textile-inspired art and design through member-supported benefits including publications, exhibitions, and conferences.

Sustainable Fashion Alliance: an online platform and community for sustainable entrepreneurs and creatives.

UN Alliance for Sustainable Fashion: Through the Alliance, the UN commits to changing the path of fashion, reducing its negative environmental and social impacts; and turning fashion into a driver of the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Weave a Real Peace: WARP is a catalyst for improving the quality of life of textile artisans worldwide. We are an inclusive global network of individuals and organizations who value the social, cultural, historic, artistic, and economic importance of textile arts.