PARTNERS 2001: ANNUAL SUMMARY

Event of the Year

Bridge Builders 2001 Awards - December 4, 2001

Partners was pleased to honor the Honorable Norman Mineta, Secretary of Department of Transportation and former Mayor of San Jose and the Japanese American Citizens League, John Tateishi, Executive Director, for leadership on equal opportunity issues for Asian Americans.

Partners also honored:

- The Prudential Spirit of Community Initiative, Scott Peterson, Vice President, and the National Association of Secondary School of Principals, Gerald Tirozzi, Executive Director, for their innovative partnership program.

- Elsie Cross, founder and President of Elsie Y. Cross Associates, a leading trainer of diversity and equal opportunity in the workplace and two of her corporate partners, First Union/Wachovia, Ken Thompson, President and CEO, and Nike Inc., Oscar Cardona, Vice President for Human Resources.

- From the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. area John Tydings, the retiring president of the Greater Washington Board of Trade, and George Vradenburg, the advisor to the chairman of AOL Time Warner for forming the Potomac Conference for Regional Collaboration.

- Kirbyjon Caldwell, pastor of the Windsor Village United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas, and J.P. Morgan Chase and Company, Alan Buckwalter III, for setting up the Power Center, a multi-service complex serving a Houston low-income community with financing support in-part from J.P. Morgan Chase.

- Dean and Kristi Jernigan, co-founders of the Memphis Redbirds Baseball Foundation and First Tennessee Bank, Christine Munson, Vice President, as the team that built the Redbird stadium and donated it to a foundation, with proceeds supporting the enrichment of sports programs in the public schools of Memphis.

- Douglas A. Tyson and Sue Ikenberry, teachers at Benjamin Banneker Academic High School and Georgetown Day High School for a joint venture that took Washington, DC to the finals of the national championship of "Its Academic" showing that Washington, DC is not a poster child for difficulty; it's a poster child for new partnerships and new ways of helping to stimulate education and excellence in our nation‚s capital.

Local Activities

- The Maddox Foundation of Hobbs, New Mexico, contacted Partners and asked if we could provide support for re-imagining downtown Hobbs to further its economic diversification and to instill a quality of life strategy in this medium size city on the Texas and New Mexico boarder. Partners undertook services that helped revise civic spirit, advance quality of life as an investment, and renew the heart of Hobbs, the historic downtown as a gathering place and educational cultural center.

- In 2001, Partners concluded phase one of our work with the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation in Jamaica Queens, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and Citibank working with the Cultural Alliance and the Greater Jamaica Development Corporation using arts and culture as a way to enhance the image, the retail shopping climate, and property values in this section of Jamaica Queens.

- And last, Partners was contracted by Michigan Works, The Labor Force Preparedness Agency in the State of Michigan to do a series of workshops in Michigan communities for the regional labor and Michigan work agencies on showing how attractiveness, i.e., creativity could tie into economic development and educational achievement goals in Michigan communities.

Cutting Edge

- Partners‚ new agenda is a relationship with the Horizon Foundation of Columbia Maryland and with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Howard County Maryland to launch a National Aging in Place Campaign. This collaboration culminated in 2002 with a leadership forum to create a broad civic agenda needed for rethinking and retrofitting our communities to support independent living for senior citizens for as long as practical. Partners sees this campaign as a critical livability agenda, as important as jobs and public health and urban design, and one that tests the sensitivity of our planners, financial analysts, and civic leadership to insure that our increasing elder populations are not isolated but are accommodated within the framework of the livable communities of America.

- Partners‚ Creative City program was launched with 16 partners to explore a relationship between the new frame of reference, „creativity‰ and Partners‚ traditional quality of life agenda to retool a community for a labor force of quality and for the incubators of new ideas, new products, and new wealth for tomorrow‚s global markets.

- Partners held a major kickoff meeting of the Creative City Initiative in May 2001 in Washington, DC with a group of consultants led by Leo Penne and others gathering together to begin a creative city agenda. A year one report of the Creative City program has been completed and is available for down loading on Partners‚ website.

Partnering/Outreach

- Partners has entered into a major partnership with the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corporation to place within their series of regional quarterly workshops on training for community development workers, the resource of Culture Builds Community. Partners began this partnership in 2001 with a workshop during NRC‚s Minneapolis forum on October 17, and began the development of a five-day curriculum of instruction on culture and community development.

- Partners entered into a joint agreement with United Way of America to explore how local United Ways can support youth development through cultural mentoring strategies as advanced by Shirley Brice Heath in her book distributed by Partners entitled ArtShow.

- Partners‚ initiated collaboration with the National Coalition for Promoting Physical Activity and their agenda for highlighting the public health crisis of overweight and obesity in the American community.

International

- Partners‚ president, Robert McNulty, served as facilitator of a series of discussions in Townsville, Australia between James Cooke University, one of the foremost research universities in the world on marine biology and the surrounding Greater Townsville community on how to remove town-gown barriers and form a better town-gown partnership for equal value.

- McNulty, further worked with United Way of Winnipeg Canada to undertake a strategic planning process following their major five-year program of having the United Way become a partner with other public and private entities that address critical inner city needs of native populations in the urban Winnipeg area.

Publications

- Cultural Heritage Tourism, a vehicle for dynamic social and economic change written by Sue Coppa and Jeff Falcuson at Partners for Livable Communities, highlighting our new initiative on Heritage Tourism Development.

- Arts and Entertainment District by Penny Cuff, Laura Durham, and Jeff Falcuson; a workbook to accompany a series of workshops for the State of Maryland on a creative new tax abatement strategy complementing smart growth, using infill and inner city development on an arts and cultural theme.

- Culture Builds Community the Power of the Arts and Strengthening Neighborhoods produced by Partners as a summary document of our multiple year initiative with the William Penn Foundation in Philadelphia summing up our three year investment strategy on community based cultural institutions as a main asset for neighborhood value in Philadelphia.

- A compendium of Best Practices for Improving Llivability, 186 pages by Anissa Wientraub and Sue Coppa of Partners to help communities to learn from the best.

- Bridge Builders Award Honoring Visionary Leaders, a summary publication prepared by Anheuser Busch with Partners for Livable Communities documenting the first four years of the Bridge Builders Award, the honorees and the Bridge Builders spirit that every community needs to help deal with problems of race, class, regional cooperation and equal opportunity.

- Partners Directory of Resources is a complete collection of Partners working documents and publications.

- Towards Livable Communities 1975-2000, the 25 year history of Partners for Livable Communities with attribution to funders, staff, Board members and collaborators over 25 years.

COMING SOON -- PARTNERS 2002