The Pennsylvania Downtown Center is seeking session proposals for the Commonwealth's Premier Revitalization Conference | Crossroads of Community & Collaboration: Building Dynamic and Innovative Partnerships, which will be held in York, PA from June 23-26, 2024.
Our Premier Revitalization Conference draws hundreds of community leaders from small towns, midsized cities, and urban neighborhood business districts. Attendees are professionals in preservation-based, economic development and community revitalization, including both experienced and new downtown and neighborhood Main Street directors and Elm Street directors, volunteers, architects, planners, economic development professionals, public officials, volunteers, and consultants.
ABOUT THIS YEAR’S THEME
Crossroads of Community & Collaboration: Building Dynamic and Innovative Partnerships PDC’s annual conference strives to provide best practices and real-life implementation examples of what community leaders can do in their own communities. We strive to inspire, inform, and ignite leaders to be bold and to implement change. Our hope is that attendees apply what they learn from one another and bring back a gameplan to transform their communities. This year’s conference will highlight innovative examples of how we can accomplish more by working together.
This year’s focus is collaboration and partnership in communities. We are looking for mobile workshops, 2-hour “how-to” sessions, 45 minute Tactical Tool Kit sessions, and the traditional 75 minute classroom sessions. In addition to proposals that bolster the 2024 theme, we welcome submissions that touch on a variety of other topics. The following ideas are often in high demand:
• Advocacy
• Community Branding
• Public Relations & Marketing Main Street or Elm Street
• Social Media
• Building a More Inclusive and Stronger Board
• Leadership development
• Business Recruitment and Retention Strategies
• Business Incubators vs. Accelerators
• Clean and Safe Solutions
• Community-based Real Estate Development
• Community Greening
• Improving Meeting Facilitation and Interpersonal Skills
• New and Innovative Partnership Ideas
• Parking Management
• Placemaking
• Public and Farmers Markets
• Public Art, Murals, and Arts Development
• Retail Support
• Small Business Assistance and Development
• Smart Growth Issues
• Transportation
• Planning
• Sustaining a Viable Organization and Fundraising
• Volunteer Recruitment and Management
• Weathering an Economic Downturn
Proposals must be submitted by midnight on January 22, 2024 via the Submittable link.
The Townie Awards celebrate both the community and the work done by Main and Elm Street Managers across the Commonwealth. Please refer to these guidelines to see where your community projects fit within the Main Street approach and the Townie Guidelines. Categories include Organizational Excellence, Physical Improvements & Design, Asset Enhancement, Anchor Building, Safe Clean & Green, Volunteer of the Year and other prestigious awards. Please read through the guidelines and if you have any questions, contact Conference Coordinator, Virginia Mauk at virginiamauk@padowntown.org.