From: "Bernstein, Rick A - WHS" <Rick.Bernstein@wisconsinhistory.org> Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:26:21 -0600 Subject: FW: Your Town RFP, Deadline January 8, 2010 Message-ID: <1EA45D5A75EBB747A54A4F1905DE558B019DBDBA33D9@MEWMAD0PC01G03.accounts.wistate.us>
I thought that some people on the list-serve would be interested in the fol
lowing RFP regarding rural design:
Rick Bernstein
Field Services-Southern Region
Wisconsin Historical Society
________________________________
From: Midwest Office [mailto:Midwest_Office@nthp.org]
Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 5:01 PM
To: Midwest Office
Subject: Your Town RFP, Deadline January 8, 2010
The National Endowment for the Arts is funding Your Town: The Citizens' Ins
titute on Rural Design, an opportunity for rural communities to host a work
shop with design professionals to address regional planning and design issu
es. The deadline for proposals is January 8, 2010. Program details and pr
oposal requirements are outlined in the RFP, included below.
Midwest Office
National Trust for Historic Preservation | 53 W. Jackson Boulevard, Suite 3
50 | Chicago, Illinois | 60604 | Phone: 312.939.5547 | Fax: 312.939.5651 |
Email: mwro@nthp.org<blocked::mailto:mwro@nthp.org> | www.PreservationNatio
n.org<http://www.PreservationNation.org>
[cid:[cid:image002.gif@01CA68FA.3A69DED0]
YOUR TOWN: THE CITIZENS' INSTITUTE ON RURAL DESIGN
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS, 2010
We are pleased to announce that the National Endowment for the Arts will be
funding four Your Town: The Citizens' Institute on Rural Design workshops
and are seeking your interest in producing a workshop between now and Novem
ber 2010. This is an opportunity to bring design professionals to your com
munity to help you tackle critical regional planning and design issues. (T
o be considered a rural community, your town must have a population of less
than 50,000 people and/or be located in a non-metropolitan county or a met
ropolitan county on the urban fringe.) Up to $22,000 will be available to
a non-profit organization for each workshop. Responses to this call should
be approximately three to five pages with no more than five letters of sup
port and five images of the community. Please submit your proposal as one
PDF document.
The Department of Landscape Architecture at SUNY Syracuse directs Your Town
: The Citizens' Institute on Rural Design in partnership with consultant Sh
elley Mastran. Since 1991, workshops have been produced in all regions of
the country with the intention of bringing together approximately 35 commun
ity leaders (who are not design professionals) to learn the importance of d
esign in building a future for their communities. The workshops, which tak
e place over two and a half days in a retreat-like setting, are organized a
ccording to a specified format. They expose participants to experts in a r
ange of planning, landscape architecture, architecture and historic preserv
ation issues and challenge them to work in small groups to solve a series o
f design problems. If you are selected to produce a Your Town workshop, a
Coordinator's Manual will guide you through the planning process, and you w
ill receive limited technical and logistical support from the program's co-
directors.
Your Town workshops may bring together participants from one community or s
everal communities in a geographic region. They may focus on design proble
ms in a real community; or a hypothetical, representative community may ser
ve as the model for problem solving. The workshops should address specific
regional planning and design issues that have a rural impact-for example,
downtown revitalization, growth management, transportation, greenway develo
pment, and subdivision design. Past organizations that have hosted a works
hop include university Community Design Centers, Chambers of Commerce, coun
ty governments, Main Street organizations, local preservation organizations
, and historical societies, among others.
The Your Town workshops have created an extensive network of speakers and f
aculty dedicated to the design issues facing rural America. We will work cl
osely with each community to identify the most appropriate speakers and fac
ulty from this network. An important part of each workshop is the selection
of a keynote speaker. Three potential speakers familiar with the Your Tow
n program who have agreed to be available if their schedules permit are Jef
f Speck, AIA; Ed McMahon, Senior Fellow at the Urban Land Institute; and Ke
nnedy Smith, with the Community Land Use and Economics (CLUE) Group.
Typically, all the participants' expenses (food, lodging, materials) are pa
id for, except transportation. Participants are expected to attend the ent
ire workshop and must agree to full attendance before being accepted.
If you are selected to produce a Your Town workshop, the funds will be prov
ided through a fee-for-service contract with SUNY Syracuse. Although $22,0
00 should cover most expenses, workshop organizers should demonstrate a mat
ch for the Endowment funds. Past successful applications have included matc
hes of approximately $10,000. The contribution may take the form of funds
raised or donated by local organizations, including goods and services (foo
d, printing, space, staff time, for example). You will be expected to main
tain budget records for all expenditures. If substantially fewer than 30 p
articipants attend the full workshop, funding from the Endowment will decre
ase accordingly. Securing committed attendance at the workshop is critical
.
We are particularly interested in workshops that produce substantial result
s and want to know the follow-up activities you propose-public meetings, ed
ucational sessions, publications, photo documentation, creating Web site fo
rums or listservs-for extending the impact of the workshop. The funds you
receive from the Endowment and other funds you raise may be applied toward
follow-up work, including hiring students to produce publications or Web-ba
sed materials, but these costs should not exceed 10 percent of the total pr
oject costs.
More information on Your Town is available at our website: www.yourtowndesi
gn.org<http://www.yourtowndesign.org/>.
If you are interested in organizing a 2010 Your Town workshop, please submi
t a brief proposal that includes the following information:
1. Sponsoring Non-profit Institution/Organization
1. Principal Organizer/Contact (Name, Address with ZIPCODE, Phone, E-mail
)
1. Proposed Location of the Workshop (Facility, Town, State and ZIPCODE)
1. Principal Issues and Problems to be Addressed. Describe both the gene
ral rural community issues and proposed design problems that the workshop w
ould address. Why is the timing of this workshop important?
1. Proposed Faculty and Speakers. List key individuals you propose to be
involved as faculty, speakers, and/or resource persons. For each, describ
e his or her area of expertise in a sentence or two. For the most importa
nt speakers, please provide some indication -- even a simple email message
-- of their commitment to attend the workshop if their schedules permit.
6. Proposed Strategy for Recruiting and Retaining Participants. Descr
ibe the audience for the workshop and explain how you would invite them to
apply. Please provide a strategy for keeping participants engaged and at t
he workshop for its entirety.
7. Organizer Experience. Briefly describe the experience of the princ
ipal organizer or organization with the Your Town program, event planning,
the rural community or communities proposed, and rural community issues. W
hile a design background is not required, if you or your organization has n
o design expertise, please provide a paragraph explaining how design issues
will be addressed during the workshop.
1. Statements of Support. Include statement(s) of endorsement from your
local governmental entity and other partners. Please send no more than fiv
e (5) such statements of support. Statements should indicate a commitment
to provide logistical, technical, or financial support and a willingness t
o participate in the workshop or send a representative.
1. Logistical Support. Briefly explain the available clerical and comput
er support for preparing the workshop and producing a Your Town notebook (a
suggested format for the notebook will be provided). We strongly encourag
e you to partner with an academic institution, or other institution, organi
zation, or agency with experience and commitment to rural design issues tha
t can assist you in developing the Your Town workshop and provide follow-up
technical assistance. If you want to see a version of the notebook online
, please contact Richard Hawks at rshawks@esf.edu<mailto:rshawks@esf.edu>.
1. Proposed Source(s) of Matching Funds or In-Kind Services and Materials
. Please indicate which funds are committed and secured versus those that
are simply proposed.
1. Follow-up to Workshop. Describe what follow-up work you propose in or
der to carry the results of the workshop forward. If you have previously h
eld similar workshops, describe any implementation that resulted.
Please organize your proposal and respond to all eleven elements contained
in this RFP.
You may send a maximum of 5 digital images of places or locations in your c
ommunity that the Your Town workshop would address Please submit your prop
osal as one PDF.
If you need more information about Your Town, you may contact one of the fo
llowing previous workshop coordinators.
Pratt Cassity, University of Georgia - pcassity@arches.uga.edu<mailto:pcass
ity@arches.uga.edu>
Michelle Jones, Mississippi State University - mjones@caad.msstate.edu<mail
to:mjones@caad.msstate.edu>
Evan Medley, Wyoming Main Street - evan.medley@wybusiness.org<mailto:evan.m
edley@wybusiness.org>
Peggy Pings, National Park Service - mpings@wvu.edu<mailto:mpings@wvu.edu>
Doug Self, Driggs, Idaho - pzdriggs@pdt.net<mailto:pzdriggs@pdt.net>
Please send e-mailed or mailed proposals to each of the following for recei
pt no later than C.O.B. on Friday, January 8th.
Richard Hawks
rshawks@mailbox.syr.edu<mailto:rshawks@mailbox.syr.edu>
Chair, Department of Landscape Architecture, CESF/SUNY, Syracuse, NY 13210
And
Shelley S. Mastran
shellmast@comcast.net<mailto:shellmast@comcast.net>
11454 Hollow Timber Court, Reston, VA 20194