Placemaking and Partnerships: Putting Creative Economy Strategies to work in your community

AHA! New Bedford

Candace Lee Heald

New Bedford & Lowell, MA

Project Dates:

1999 - Present

Tags

2011 CCX presenter, Business Planning, Civic Engagement, Event, Networking

Posted Date:

Oct 15, 2012

In 1997, the Standard-Times convened a planning process using the Regional Community Congress model to identify the SouthCoast as a regional hub. Calling the sectors of health care, education, religion, business, and arts and culture, this group met for 2 years. The idea of the arts and culture subcommittee was to create a program which has become the AHA! 2nd Thursday Arts and Culture night. Four partners (NPS, Artworks!, The Whaling Museum, and the City) applied for Cultural Economic Development (CED) funds from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and in July 1999, AHA! night began and has continuously operated since then.

Project Goals

What were the project goals?

Our project goals are to: •Stimulate retail sales downtown by attracting new audiences for cultural programs •Strengthen Lowell's tourist trade by improving Lowell's brand and marketing its attractions to a broader public •Support the aims of the Creative Economy Plan through events, joint marketing and technical assistance programs for creative entrepreneurs •Integrate key ethnic communities and their businesses into the creative economy more fully, by bringing key cultural groups within these communities into the planning and producing partnerships behind the Discover Lowell event series.

Have they changed over time?

Project goals have shifted over time to reflect interests of our stakeholder groups, and our strategic goals to reinforce larger creative economy plan objectives.

Who are the project partners and stakeholders?

Stakeholders include our local museums and galleries, a collaborative of downtown businesses, the Lowell Parks & Conservation Trust, UMass Lowell, Middlesex Community College. In 2008, the AHA! project created the the newly articulated mission to meet challenges and opportunities in New Bedford and to practice the operating principles.It is as follows: AHA! is a cooperative venture dedicated to invigorating the downtown New Bedford cultural scene. The project accomplishes this through: •Presenting second Thursday FREE cultural nights. •Inviting local and regional artists, cultural groups and educators to present what they do. •Spearheading cooperative marketing efforts. •Being a forum for the AHA! Partners to convene around shared topics. •Contributing to the City’s Creative Economy initiatives.

Project Specifics

How was the project implemented? What were the steps taken?

COOL’s Executive Director and Discover Lowell project manager work to convene various small group meetings of stakeholders for each of the events, working to build capacity with co-presenters. We tailor and build on our marketing for each event through developing new audiences and engaging our core audience groups. Over time we have worked to help different partner organizations take the lead on various programs and elements, so there’s an increased sense of shared ownership on projects through collaboration. In the 11 years since AHA! had operated, there have been continuous AHA! nights since July 1999.

Have they been refined over time?

What has shifted is three office settings, three fiscal agents, a strategic plan with operations principles and spin off events from the brand of AHA! AHA! has grown from 14 partners to 61 and from a monthly attendance of 267 to 2,000-3,000 people visiting downtown every month.

Obstacles

What were your major obstacles?

One major obstacle we had to overcome was in changing the brand of our program. In 2010 we reshaped the program from monthly first Thursday events (Destination World) to a multi-pronged program approach that includes 6 major events, a cross-marketing program, a film series and creative enterprise workshops (Discover Lowell). We made this strategic shift to better reflect the goals of our Creative Economy Plan. Some of the core goals—increasing foot traffic for local businesses and creating a more vibrant downtown, developing opportunities for Lowell’s immigrant communities to connect to our cultural resources and be showcased with programming—remain the same. However, we did experience a challenge as we shifted the brand of the program. We’ve addressed this challenge through strong communication with our partner networks, and by selecting major programs that involve the greatest number of potential partners, so we build as we go. Another obstacle we have is as Lowell continues to grow, we have a great number of cultural events downtown, which is excellent in terms of overall city development. And this also presents a challenge in that there are an increasing number of events for our cultural community to keep track of. We’ve addressed this challenge by working with stakeholders to develop a community calendar and encouraging new partners to put any and all events on the calendar. This way it serves as a planning and audience development tool for our cultural stakeholders. The challenge for 2011 is to create a forward looking sustainability plan to continue the work of the past decade of AHA! for the next decade and to attract the resources to make the plan a reality. One major obstacle we had to overcome was in changing the brand of our program. In 2010 we reshaped the program from monthly first Thursday events (Destination World) to a multi-pronged program approach that includes 6 major events, a cross-marketing program, a film series and creative enterprise workshops (Discover Lowell). We made this strategic shift to better reflect the goals of our Creative Economy Plan. Some of the core goals—increasing foot traffic for local businesses and creating a more vibrant downtown, developing opportunities for Lowell’s immigrant communities to connect to our cultural resources and be showcased with programming—remain the same. However, we did experience a challenge as we shifted the brand of the program. We’ve addressed this challenge through strong communication with our partner networks, and by selecting major programs that involve the greatest number of potential partners, so we build as we go. Another obstacle we have is as Lowell continues to grow, we have a great number of cultural events downtown, which is excellent in terms of overall city development. And this also presents a challenge in that there are an increasing number of events for our cultural community to keep track of. We’ve addressed this challenge by working with stakeholders to develop a community calendar and encouraging new partners to put any and all events on the calendar. This way it serves as a planning and audience development tool for our cultural stakeholders. For those who are considering undertaking this effort, it will help if you have a solid foundation of some key partners. UMass Lowell, the City of Lowell, the Lowell National Historical Park, Revolving Museum, and the Greater Merrimack Valley CVB brought funding and some staff resources to assist with planning and production of programs. They also offered assistance in helping shape the strategic vision at every step of the way. The challenge for 2011 is to create a forward looking sustainability plan to continue the work of the past decade of AHA! for the next decade and to attract the resources to make the plan a reality. The partners continue to energize the downtown landscape.

Who or what was instrumental in overcoming these obstacles?

UMass Lowell, the City of Lowell, the Lowell National Historical Park, Revolving Museum, and the Greater Merrimack Valley CVB brought funding and some staff resources to assist with planning and production of programs. They also offered assistance in helping shape the strategic vision at every step of the way.

What top three suggestions would you give to others attempting a similar project?

For those who are considering undertaking this effort, it will help if you have a solid foundation of some key partners. The partners continue to energize the downtown landscape. United around the common goal of creating a vibrant, live-able, walk-able, and safe downtown, AHA! partners with the City of NB must focus on the marketplace and attracting additional investments, both financially and structurally. The task is a framework for sustaining and growing the arts and culture sector of the economy in the City featuring the pattern of collaborative effort which has propelled the work to date. United around the common goal of creating a vibrant, live-able, walk-able, and safe downtown, AHA! partners with the City of NB must focus on the marketplace and attracting additional investments, both financially and structurally. The task is a framework for sustaining and growing the arts and culture sector of the economy in the City featuring the pattern of collaborative effort which has propelled the work to date.

Project Impact

How has this project contributed to creative community building?

Annually our programs bring in over 40,000 people to the City, and local businesses experience a 24-40% increase in foot traffic during events and residual impacts after events. Since our project inception, thanks to Adams Arts Funding, we have leveraged $1.9 million in direct spending on arts, culture and creative economy projects that have boosted job creation and created a more vibrant downtown core. The Discover Lowell partnership has brought together businesses, immigrant organizations, cultural non-profits, artists, community organizations to the table around common goals. Any community that has a strong sense of place, several cultural and institutional partners who are looking to work together to enhance their downtown and share resources should consider a collaboration of this nature. SINCE 1999, THE AHA! PROJECT AND PARTNERS HAVE SPURRED A CULTURAL RENAISSANCE AND ECONOMIC RESURGENCE IN THE DOWNTOWN AREA OF NEW BEDFORD. The aim has been to stimulate ongoing investment of people and capital in order to develop New Bedford as a uniquely authentic cultural hub, constituted by a successful and growing collaboration between its many constituencies. In the most recent data from 2007-2008, AHA! spent a total of $143,500 on activities in 2007, not including in-kind contributions. Thus, for every dollar spent by AHA!, 3.7 dollars in economic impacts were created. In terms of the state's return on investment, a total of $60,000 of the Massachusetts Cultural Council grant was spent by AHA! in 2007. With a total economic impact of $527,765, almost nine dollars have been generated for every state dollar spent in grant money. The estimated total economic impact of AHA! has increased by 96.8 percent from 2000 to 2008 (inflation-adjusted dollars).

How did it achieve your original goals?

Discover Lowell (formerly Destination World) was designed to stimulate the downtown economy, by enriching the city’s nightlife (and weekend life) through high quality art and culture events structured in ways that would attract hundreds of local residents and visitors on a regular basis.

Were there unexpected impacts?

This partnership has spawned several additional major collaborative projects including, the More than a Number exhibit commemorating 35 years after the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia (2010), Where Elephants Weep: a Cambodian Rock Opera (2007), the Annual Lowell Film Festival, and On the Road in Lowell: Jack Kerouac scroll exhibit and summer program series (2007) to name a few.

CCX Workshop Handout

CCX Workshop Handout: AHA New Bedford!

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