Main Spotlight: Insights From the 2024 Trends Survey

Nearly every year since 2005, Main Street America has surveyed the leaders of local Main Street programs to learn about their successes, challenges, and local program characteristics. 

We sent out our 2024 Main Street Trends Survey in February, and we were thrilled to hear back from 544 local program leaders. To encourage participation, we again offered a free conference registration to one Local Program leader who completed a survey and a prize package to one Coordinating Program that had at least 75 percent of their MSA Accredited and Affiliate programs represented. Congratulations to Little 5 Points in Atlanta, Georgia, for being randomly selected for the free conference registration, and to Kentucky Main Street, for engaging 19 of the 22 Kentucky Main Streets and winning our prize package!

Below is a summary of findings from the 2024 trends survey. A more complete and detailed version of the results is available here. These insights will help us advocate, craft resources, and design programs that better support the needs of the Main Street network. 

Places and Resources

Main Street America’s 2023 network of 1,278 Accredited and Affiliate programs, includes a wide range of communities, from small towns with just a few hundred residents to big cities with millions of residents. About a quarter of all Main Street programs are in communities with less than 5,000 residents; about half are in communities of less than 15,000 people. In the 2024 trends survey, our respondents came from communities that were highly representative of the MSA network. 

We were curious to understand how local leaders describe the city or town where they work: whether rural, suburban, urban, or something else. Defining rural places purely with population or geography data is a real challenge. By a widely accepted definition of rural places — all communities that are not part of major metropolitan areas — about 44 percent of local Main Street programs are in rural areas. Nearly 60 percent of respondents to this survey, however, describe their Main Street communities as rural, suggesting that data-centric definitions of ​“rural” may need refinement. 

The Trends Survey is our best source of information each year on local programs’ operating budgets. In this year’s survey, we see that 60 percent of responding programs have an operating budget between $75,000 and $300,000 annually. Approximately one-in-five programs (21%) have an annual operating budget of $75,000 or less, and about the same proportion (20%) have a budget of $300,000 or more. This is consistent with the data from the 2023 Main Street Trends Survey, but the 2024 data suggests a slight uptick in budgets.

Local government support is the most common source of funding in local programs’ operating budgets. 

• Nearly nine-in-ten programs (88%) receive 20 percent of their operating budget from their local government, and about two-in-ten (19%) receive 90 percent or more of their budget from local government.
• The second most reported source of funds is event and festival revenue from visitors and vendors, with 28 percent receiving at least 20 percent of their budget from event and festival revenue, and six percent of programs receiving most of their funding from this category.
• Other commonly cited revenue sources include sponsorship from companies, philanthropy, public entities (50%); grants (49%); donations (34%); other earned revenue from product sales, business ventures, etc., (27%); membership dues (24%); and annual investor or supporter campaigns (22%).

The salary of Main Street leaders represents a large portion of programs’ annual budgets. According to the 2024 survey data, the median annual salary of a local Main Street leader is between $50,000 and $59,999 — 21 percent of survey respondents indicated this salary range. Equal proportions (37%) have annual salaries less than $50,000 and between $50,000 and $69,999. The remaining 26% have annual salaries greater than $70,000. Worryingly, five percent of responding Main Street leaders said they were not being paid for their work. Main Street America recognizes the challenges in providing equitable pay, and we are committed to helping local programs find sustainable solutions. Read more here >

Wins and Challenges

We asked local Main Street leaders what they considered their three greatest successes as they looked back on 2023. Most expressed pride they had ​“planned and hosted popular and successful events” (58%). About a third of respondents pointed to successes supporting existing businesses (34%) and more than one-in-four touted success building stronger partnerships (28%). Some respondents cited specific successes, writing in points of pride like: ​“ended the year with 100% of street front spaces leased,” ​“acquired grants to rehabilitate three downtown vacant buildings,” ​“began a new overlay that will offer flexibility to how buildings are used,” and ​“started a Main Street program.” 

The trends survey data also clearly shows what a challenging job it can be to lead a local Main Street program. We asked about the current services or programs local Main Streets offer. More than half of all respondents selected 11 of the 19 services and programs. More than 9 in 10 respondents (96%) indicated they manage public events/​festivals. Support for entrepreneurs and small business owners (87%), district beautification and cleanup (80%), grant programs (79%), and district/​community branding or image campaigns (74%) were the next most cited programs and activities. 

In a separate question, we focused on offered programs and activities supporting entrepreneurs and small business owners:

• 63 percent of respondents offering entrepreneur and small business owner support said they offer entrepreneurship/​business education;
• 57 percent offer community liaison services, such as planning, zoning, permitting, and code compliance assistance; and
• 51 percent offer entrepreneurship promotion or marketing campaigns.

We were also interested in learning about the types of programs and activities that local Main Street programs do not currently offer but would like to offer in the future. Although only about 14 percent of respondents indicated that they are currently assisting with business succession, nearly one-third of respondents (32%) indicated that they would like to offer business succession assistance in the future — the top choice on this question. Other popular areas for future programming include wayfinding, public signage, and gateways (27%), leadership programs (26%), programs related to sustainability, green space, and climate change (23%), and support for housing development or housing development programs (22%).

We asked local leaders directly about the challenges their organizations face. Limited budgets (61%), too many programs and responsibilities given staff capacity (48%), challenges with board engagement (40%), and burnout (33%) were the most common responses. A separate question about staffing revealed that 39 percent of local programs have a single paid staff person. Nearly one-third percent of all respondents (31%) indicated that they are the only paid staff person and that they work full-time as the local Main Street leader. Thankfully, 89 percent of responding programs indicated they have at least four people who volunteer over the course of the year. More than two-thirds of all programs (68%) have at least 20 such volunteers who contributed at least three to five hours of their time over the course of a year, and half of all programs had at least 30 such volunteers. 

Leadership on Main Streets

Main Street Trends Surveys consistently include questions about local leaders’ demographic backgrounds. Consistent with past surveys, we learned that the vast majority of local Main Street leaders are non-Hispanic White women:

• 82 percent of local Main Street leaders identify as women;
• 87 percent of respondents identified as non-Hispanic White;
• 5 percent of local leader respondents indicated that they are of Hispanic, Latino/​a/​x, or Spanish origin; and
• 2 percent identify as Black or African American; and two percent identify as multiracial.

We learned through the 2024 Trends Survey that three-fourths of local Main Street leaders were born into either Generation X (44%) or the Millennial generation (31%), and that seven percent of local leaders are LGBTQIA+. Three percent of respondents indicated they have a disability, two percent said they are an immigrant, and two percent indicated that they are a veteran.

Turning to local leaders’ experience, more than half of respondents (52%) have been involved with Main Street as an employee, volunteer, board member, or another similar role for at least five years, and more than a quarter of respondents (28%) have been involved with Main Street for more than ten years. Meanwhile, 18 percent of respondents are still new to this work and have been involved with Main Street for one year or less. 

We introduced a new pair of questions to this year’s Trends Survey, focused on local leaders’ professional backgrounds and previous jobs prior to joining Main Street. Asked about their primary professional background and training, former small business owners/​entrepreneurs (16%), community development practitioners (15%), community organizers (12%), and economic development officials (11%) responded, but the most often selected option was ​“something else” (35%). Those individuals specified a variety of backgrounds: Marketing (17% of all write-ins), communications (7%), arts (4%), nonprofit management (4%), and business administration (4%) were the most common specific entries. 

Studying the previous jobs of local Main Street leaders revealed that ten percent of all respondents were previously a small business owner. Nine percent worked in education — either as teachers or professors, or as staff at a school, college, or university. Four percent previously worked at a chamber of commerce. We also heard from former stay-at-home parents, writers and journalists, nurses, farmers, bartenders, engineers, opera singers, and electricians, to name a few.

Priorities for 2024

Asked about the top three challenges they face in their downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts, local Main Street leaders consistently highlighted lack of business variety (31%), building maintenance or buildings in poor condition (31%), and inconsistent or limited store hours (31%). These were the same as the top three district challenges identified in last year’s Trends Survey, when inconsistent or limited store hours were cited by 38 percent of respondents, building maintenance and building condition by 36 percent, and business variety by 28 percent. 

Finally, we asked local Main Street leaders to look to the year ahead and tell us the three areas that they would focus on and improve their impact:

• 39 percent of respondents indicated a focus on accessing new sources of program revenue;
• 30 percent are focused on strengthening board engagement; and
• 24 percent are focused on conducting successful outreach to the community and building community buy-in.

Some respondents specified their own focus areas, including ​“focusing on vacant properties and showing the value of a renovated space,” ​“diversify[ing] business ownership,” and ​“expanding [the] downtown district by adding infill projects.” 

The 2024 Main Street Trends Survey sheds light on the diversity and strength of the Main Street network. We are very grateful for the hundreds of local leaders who responded to the survey and shared their perspectives on the challenges and opportunities they are facing in their communities and organizations. If you are interested in digging even further into the data, you can see a more comprehensive version of the results here

Redevelopment Resources, a Main Street America Allied Member, is this quarter’s Main Spotlight advertiser. For more information about the services they provide to Main Street organizations, click here >