We’ve previously informed you that RECONOMICS Institute (the publisher of REVITALIZATION) had announced the new RISING PLACES initiative, which will go live on January 1, 2024.
But you don’t need to wait until then to get involved. Our new Rising Places merch page just went live, giving you the opportunity to spread the good news, and help support the initiative.
Those of you who read the 2020 book, RECONOMICS: The Path To Resilient Prosperity, might remember this passage: “What we restore, restores us. The places we revitalize, revitalize us.”
Now, you can wear that inspiring, regenerative message on a wide variety of beautiful clothing.
Rising Places clothing accomplishes 3 important goals:
- It identifies the wearer (you or the person you gift it to) as someone with a passion for regenerating communities and our planet;
- It inspires the people who see it to imagine a restored, revitalized future for all; and
- It helps fund RisingPlaces.org, the new online solution that helps communities create a brighter local future.
More about Rising Places:
Rising Places helps communities become magnets for funding, employers and residents. It does this by:
- Accrediting communities with superior renewal capacity, which makes them more productive places to invest (high ROI);
- Helping employers and public/private funders find high-ROI communities;
- Accrediting projects that help build the renewal capacity of the overall community;
- Helping residents ensure that local renewal efforts benefit all./li>
Revitalization, resilience and recovery efforts can be driven by design, planning, economic development, placemaking, heritage, arts, etc.
But those are just tools and tactics with limited scope: success is far more likely for the community as a whole when those tools and tactics are supported by a strategic process.
To attract public and private funding—as well as residents and employers—you must inspire confidence that your community 1) has a bright future; and 2) can help their investments succeed.
Both depend on your local renewal capacity.
Almost any community can recruit low-quality employers with incentives, and do successful redevelopment projects: only those with superior renewal capacity can actually reverse a downward trajectory in their economy and/or quality of life.
Increasing confidence in a better local future is often the most important strategic outcome. Confidence that your economy and quality of life are on the upswing is what attracts new investors, employers and residents…and helps retain the ones you have.
A 20-year research program analyzed revitalization, resilience and recovery successes and failures worldwide. It identified a common factor that was present in the successes and missing in the failures: a strategic process.
Each community invented theirs from scratch, calling it different names. Despite diverse cultures, economies, politics, challenges and dreams, the same process emerged in the successes.
The process of getting accredited as a Rising Places community also helps the community make the changes needed in order to qualify: it’s a community improvement process, not just a test.
The RISING PLACES Tools offered by Rising Places put that proven process in your hands. You can modify and adapt it as needed to build the brighter future your community desires.
How do you start creating a brighter local future with Rising Places? That depends on who you are.
Corporations, non-profits, foundations, individual philanthropists and local governments can all support their local community—and our shared planet—by becoming a Local Benefactor of RISING PLACES.
You can proudly display your RISING PLACES Benefactor logo in your ads, or on your website, showing that you help make places better. Benefactors will appear in RISING PLACES advertising, editorials, articles and our other promotional exposure.
Once a Local Benefactor registers their community, everyone in that city or county (residents and leaders alike) gets permanent, FREE access to the RISING PLACES Tools. The Local Benefactor is exclusively featured in the Local Benefactor Banner on that community’s RISING PLACES Page for 5 years, with the right of first refusal for renewing as the Local Benefactor.
NOTE: You can be the Benefactor of more than one community, but each community has only one Benefactor. Once you’ve activated a community’s access to the Rising Places accreditation process, they have permanent access to it, and to our RISING PLACES Tools…even if you don’t renew as a Benefactor.
The Benefactor opportunity for any particular community is on a first-come, first-served basis, so benefit the community you love now, while it’s still available.
Once a Local Benefactor registers their community, everyone in that city or county (residents and leaders alike) gets permanent, FREE access to the RISING PLACES Tools. The Local Benefactor is exclusively featured in the Local Benefactor Banner on that community’s RISING PLACES Page for 5 years, with the right of first refusal for renewing as the Local Benefactor.
The Benefactor opportunity for any particular community is on a first-come, first-served basis, so benefit the community you love now, while it’s still available.
You might also want to consider getting certified as a RISING PLACES Planner).
If you’re a real estate developer or commercial / industrial / multifamily residential property owner, you can submit a recent, current or proposed project for certification as a Rising Places Project, once your local Renewal Engine Tools have been activated by a Benefactor.
Again: RisingPlaces.org won’t go live until January 1, 2024, but you can buy the merch and/or become a Sponsor, Partner or Local Benefactor right now.