Marion, Iowa © Tasha Sams
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Emporia, Kansas © Emporia Main Street
Made up of small towns, mid-sized communities, and urban commercial districts, the thousands of organizations, individuals, volunteers, and local leaders that make up Main Street America™ represent the broad diversity that makes this country so unique.
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Waterloo, Iowa © Main Street Waterloo
Your one-stop-shop for all the latest stories, news, events, and opportunities – including grants and funding programs – across Main Street.
Kendall Whittier — Tulsa, Oklahoma © Kendall Whittier Main Street
Join us in our work to advance shared prosperity, create strong economies, and improve quality of life in downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts.
Named Best Fundraiser by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, the Friendly City Fortune is Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance’s (HDR) biggest fundraising event. Each summer, HDR raffles off $250,000 in cash and prizes to 54 lucky winners from the local community. The funds support HDR’s work to make Harrisonburg a destination for locals and visitors.
HDR developed the event to raise increased funds from a wider donor pool while also giving back to the community. They describe it as a win-win-win program. “Prize winners win, HDR wins because it can fund an ambitious work plan, and the downtown wins, too, when HDR can do more to improve downtown and strengthen the district so visitors and locals can have more memorable experiences and the business community can thrive,” said Emily Winter, Director of Marketing.
Prizes are given away every five minutes for four hours, building excitement and momentum over the course of the event. This year’s event featured phenomenal prizes including a 2022 Kia Telluride, an all-inclusive trip to St. Martin, a speakeasy part for twenty at a downtown venue, a Coleman Outfitter 400 UTV, a Fuse Sport Mountain Bike, a MacBook Pro, and a $20,000 check! HDR works with local venders to supply these prizes.
Proceeds are based on the number of tickets sold, how many winners select the prize or the 50% cash payout, and how much raffle marketing and other expenses cost. Tickets cost $100 and offer two chances for the ticketholder to win.
The funds raised through Friendly City Fortune have had a huge impact on HDR’s work. Projects funded through the program include:
The program also provides an opportunity for rich community engagement and stakeholder networking. For example, in January, HDR ran a “this or that” promotion on Facebook and Instagram where people voted for which prizes they’d like to see offered at the raffle. HDR also gives tickets to important community members, like healthcare workers, the fire department, and the police department. The tickets are sold in local businesses in the downtown, encouraging people to visit these shops and hopefully buy other items along with the tickets.
“This fund raiser has allowed us to level up and start making some things happen that would have taken years of fund raising to accomplish,” said Executive Director Andrea L Dono. “From realizing small business’ dreams through our Bricks & Clicks assistance program to giving kids a new place to play on our latest public art sculpture - we are thrilled that the community (and beyond) is supporting our raffle and helping us meet important community goals.”
T-Mobile announced its latest round of Hometown Grant recipients, with 275 communities across 46 states now part of the exclusive crew that will receive funding and support to fuel local projects that help people connect and innovate.
Meet the recipients of the 2024 round of GM on Main Street grants.
Learn how this organization is uplifting business owners and preventing displacement.
Charlotte, NC © Pixabay
Learn how you can participate in the Thriving Communities program as a capacity builder or how you can receive support from the program.
Learn how this Massachusetts community uses their farmer's market to increase access to fresh food.
Learn how the National Clean Investment Fund (NCIF) and the Clean Communities Accelerator Fund (CCIA) will pump billions of dollars into reducing carbon emissions from the built environment in the coming years.
Meet the newest recipients of the T-Mobile Hometown Grants, reaching a milestone of 200 towns impacted by the program.
Main Street America is leading a coalition urging that the EPA make available the GGRF funds for adaptive reuse and location-efficient projects because of the substantial greenhouse gas emissions reduction offered by such developments.
Learn about the Boston Main Street Foundation’s role in fostering powerful collaborations, and stay tuned for our final featured article in March.
In Fall 2022, MSA partnered with infill developer and small-deal guru Jim Heid and the Incremental Development Alliance to conduct surveys on the barriers to small-scale real estate projects across the United States. Here we share the results.
Creating a meaningful, place-based fundraising program is a great way to tap into the holiday giving season while centering your mission and values.
Main Street America launches a project to learn more about the specific barriers to small-scale real estate development on our Main Streets and identify solutions for financing small-scale deals.
learn how Rethos: Places Reimagined is encouraging upper-floor development through their program funded by the Paul Bruhn Historic Revitalization Grant Program.
Red Wing, MN © Megan Tsui
The AARP Community Challenge program gives out quick-action grants to activate public spaces. Meet some of the Main Streets awarded grants through the program this year.
An exploration of microfinance as a tool that helps communities and small businesses thrive, while allowing money to be reinvested in local businesses and neighborhoods where it is needed most.
How do those amazing Main Street rehabilitation projects happen? And what policies and public support make them happen? In the Behind the Ribbon Cutting series, we look at a project or businesses from concept to opening day to break down the partnerships and funding brought to bear and recognize how we can advocate for policies and resources for revitalization across the country.
Astoria, OR © ADHDA
To support Georgia Main Streets throughout the recovery process and position them for long-term sustainability, Main Street America launched the Georgia Main Street Innovation Grant Program, made possible through generous support from The Williams Family Foundation of Georgia.
Thomasville, GA © Thomasville Main Street
The global pandemic gave us all a glimpse of a further dispersed future – a time when you don’t sit in a classroom at school, watch movies in a theater, or even go to the grocery store. Where do Main Streets fit in that model?
Community economic development leaders need to get creative with their fundraising plans, identifying and securing diverse funding sources from both inside and outside their community
San Francisco, CA © Bjorn Bakstad
The Downtown Newton Development Association (North Carolina) partnered with the City of Newton on a temporary tactical urbanism project to demonstrate how their permanent streetscape improvements will benefit downtown.
Over 500 people braved the misty rain this past weekend to come and celebrate Painesville and its Made on Main Street community transformation project.
In October 2017, Main Street Ottumwa collaborated with local partners, Main Street Iowa, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Better Block Foundation to stop planning, talking, and wishing, and start doing.
As part of the Community Foundation of Greater Atlanta’s Grants to Green program, Maine was designated one of two national replication sites.
The Metuchen Downtown Alliance created a cool, family-friendly public gathering space in “the worst looking spot in town” with the help of just $2,500 in Edward Jones Placemaking on Main Challenge matching grant funds,
Small Business Saturday promo pic from Downtown Goldsboro, North Carolina, showing all the folks who took the pledge support a small business in their community.
In the wake of Hurricane Harvey, Main Street merchants in two communities in Michigan and Kentucky, as well as a fellow Texas Main Street community, jumped in to help their Texas colleagues.
Through the Edward Jones Placemaking on Main Crowdfunding Challenge, the National Main Street Center and Edward Jones awarded 10 Main Street America programs $2,500 each in match funds to implement their lighter, quicker, cheaper-type placemaking projects.
Being the only person in the know can be fun, exhilarating even. Except when you are the one person out of 600+ in a room and you know bad news is coming.
In 2016, the North Carolina Main Street & Rural Planning Center partnered with the University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s Department of Interior Architecture (UNCG) to provide design assistance to Main Street communities.
Main Street America is committed to helping build inclusive communities. Homelessness is an increasingly important issue facing Main Street communities big and small, urban and rural.
How one Wyoming Main Street implemented a free bike share program.
With 413 National Park areas¹ and over 1,000 Main Street America programs, it’s no surprise that many of the communities following the Four Point Approach serve as gateways to our national parks.
The local Main Street organization, Downtown Milford Inc., is trying to address these shifting demographics by creating a more inclusive sense of community.
Street Fairs are fun! Fundraising is not. Unless an individual or local business would like to underwrite the full cost of your Fair, consider the following eight tested fundraising programs.
Given these facts and others about year-end appeals, you should be planning a fundraising campaign during the six weeks of the year between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve.
Enter the aLABama Downtown Laboratory, a two-day event where participants work in sessions to study, analyze, and question experts on one area of the Main Street Four Point Approach®.
5 questions to understand how to tap into the motivations of your Main Street stakeholders to achieve what you (and they) want.
