A Culture of Yes

A CULTURE OF YES! A Design + Humanities Lab

Report on Knight Foundation Catalyst Residency | July 27-31, 2015

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Catalyzing Newport is made possible with the generous support of Van Beuren Charitable Foundation Rhode Island Council for the Humanities

Carol Coletta and Danny Harris, catalysts from the Knight Foundation, visited Newport in July 2015.

The following report summarizes their experiences, charts the outcomes of their residency, and focuses on the results of the Design + Humanities lab they facilitated with the local action team.

Catalyzing Newport Steering Committee International Tennis Hall of Fame Newport Art Museum Newport Restoration Foundation The Preservation Society of Newport County Redwood Library & Athenaeum Rhode Island Historical Society Salve Regina University

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Table of Contents

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CATALYZING NEWPORT

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DESIGN + HUMANITIES LAB: A CULTURE OF YES!

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Expertise: Catalysts Carol Coletta and Danny Harris

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Impact Areas: Urban Growth & Economy, Diversity & Prosperity

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Immersion Activities Local Action Team

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Results

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Essay: HISTORY + PLACEMAKING

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Imagine a city where‌

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history is used to create a better future.

The chronicled history is almost less important than what will happen. People do not realize how important this group is to the future of Newport because no one else is going to do it. We are writing history today. terry dickinson, Chief of Staff The Preservation Society of Newport County

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THE CHALLENGE

DAY 1

expertise

impact areas

VISTING CATALYST

S URBAN GROWTH & ECONOMY

immersion

activities

DIGITAL CULTURE

STEERING COMMITTEE

Lectures

& Forums

for Public

Workshops with Local Action Team

CULTURAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

DIVERSITY & PROSPERITY

LOCAL ACTION TEAM

One-on-one Meetings

Tours

DAY 7 THE RESULTS

Seed Grants 8

Experiments

Connections

Catalyzing Newport

Through Catalyzing Newport, I have gained a better understanding of various assets

WHAT IS CATALYZING NEWPORT?

held by the group and what’s

Catalyzing Newport is an initiative to provoke ideas, connections, and outcomes to support a more resilient and prosperous Newport. Based on the core belief that history matters for Newport now, Catalyzing Newport’s network of leaders are developing innovative and substantive ways to engage with the city’s storied places and ideas in order to achieve significant outcomes. These include:

available for other people to use collaboratively. ____ benedict leca, Executive Director Redwood Library & Athenaeum

– the City will be better able to make PROGRESS on key challenges – the organizations dedicated to preserving, exhibiting, interpreting Newport’s history will be more RESILIENT – Newport and Rhode Island’s civic identity will be STRONGER. At the heart of Catalyzing Newport is a steering committee of the leaders of seven historical, cultural, and educational organizations working together to create a shared vision of Newport. The initiative’s catalyst model draws on the extensive experience, national and international networks, and creative excellence of established experts (known as “catalysts”) to engage Newport communities in meaningful exchanges. Each visiting catalyst is paired with a team of local practitioners (known as the “local action team”). The local action team is devised specifically for each residency and works intensively with their catalyst to design an experiment which they prototype in Newport after the catalyst leaves.

Visiting catalysts are selected based on their expertise related to Catalyzing Newport’s Impact Areas: Cultural Entrepreneurship, Diversity & Prosperity, Urban Growth & Economy, and Digital Culture. Identified by the steering committee as the main collaborative opportunities among Newport’s historical and cultural institutions, these impact areas focus the initiative’s planning and activities. Making progress in these areas requires long-term visioning, discovery, and experimentation, as well as cross-sector and intra-organization relationship building. We recognize that Catalyzing Newport is just one of many efforts focused on issues of long-term sustainability and resiliency in Newport. Together, we imagine a Newport whose future is rich in culture, civic life, and economic opportunities.

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Design + Humanities Lab

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A Culture of Yes! ď‚™

Catalyzing Newport @CatalyzingNwpt: This is not a state built by people who asked for permission @RIHistory @CatalyzingNwpt 2015/07/29

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Expertise Visiting Catalysts

THE KNIGHT FOUNDATION

supports transformational ideas that promote quality journalism, advance media innovation, engage communities, and foster the arts.

The Knight Foundation believes that democracy thrives when people and communities are informed and engaged. One of Knight’s strategies is to invest in civic innovators who help cities attract and keep talented people, expand economic opportunity, and create a culture of engagement.

With the core role the humanities, arts, and culture play in fostering civic engagement, talent retention, and economic development, Rhode Island’s decision makers looking to turn around Rhode Island’s economic troubles have a great opportunity to engage this sector.

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CAROL COLETTA | The Knight Foundation Coletta joined the Knight Foundation in 2013, and is an expert on the development of cities. She was previously the director of ArtPlace, a unique public-private collaboration to accelerate creative placemaking in communities across the United States. For seven years, Coletta was president and CEO of CEOs for Cities, a national network of urban leaders. Previously, she served as executive director of the Mayors’ Institute on City Design, and also ran a Memphis-based public affairs consulting firm, Coletta & Company, focused on civic issues. Coletta has written and spoken extensively on the future of cities, including how communities develop, attract, and retain talent. In 2003, she was named a Knight Fellow in Community Building at the University of Miami School of Architecture.

She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Memphis with majors in Journalism and Public Issues Management and has completed graduate work in future studies at the University of Houston Clear Lake and in design at the Institute of Design in Chicago.

DANIEL HARRIS | The Knight Foundation Prior to joining the Knight Foundation in 2014, Harris was a principal of StorySocial, a creative design studio in Washington, D.C. In that role, he helped businesses, cities, foundations, and brands more effectively collect and share their stories online and in person to build stronger communities. He is also co-founder of Feastly, a venture capitalbacked online marketplace that allows cooks to turn their homes into restaurants and promotes community connections at the dinner table. Previously, he was the chief storytelling officer for People’s District. Harris earned a BA from Connecticut College and a MPA from Princeton University. His work has been featured in Fast Company, The New York Times, NPR, TIME, The Wall Street Journal and Wired. The Washington Post called him a “modern-day Studs Terkel.” Harris has delivered presentations around the world, is a regular speaker on topics such as storytelling, community building, and creative placemaking, and was chosen as a National Arts Strategies Creative Community Fellow.

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Impact Areas

S URBAN GROWTH & ECONOMY

Preserving identity and heritage with economic sustainability and growth. A local, regional, and national cross-sector dialogue that places Newport as a demonstration site for historical urban landscape management.

DIVERSITY & PROSPERITY

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Providing opportunities for work, prosperity, and a richness of material culture and ideas across a diverse and changing population. Activating Newport’s history as a place of tolerance and opportunity to investigate how diversity can support prosperity.

THE THEME | A Culture of Yes! The theme for the Knight Foundation residency was inspired by conversations generated with the local action team during their Design + Humanities lab. Participants were asked to reflect on what the opportunities are for an entrepreneur coming to Newport for the first time. This question resonates with Newport’s history since the city was a hotbed for innovation and enterprise. This history can offer a lot of insight for today’s economic development. How can we as a sector better leverage Newport’s rich history of makers and entrepreneurs into stories that inspire the public? Does Newport breed disruption? What are the ways? How are we telling our authentic story?

It was noted by our catalysts that each time they posed their question – to various audiences -- the respondents would eventually default to discussing the barriers for local entrepreneurs. It was evident that we needed to further explore the relationship between access, creativity, and permission. How could we transform Newport from a real or perceived Culture of No to a Culture of Yes?

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What would an entrepreneur coming to Newport learn about the opportunities here? How would they get connected?

These are questions you need to be able to answer to attract economic catalysts. ____ daniel harris, Program Director Knight Foundation in San Jose, CA

THE CHALLENGE Catalyzing Newport selected representatives from the Knight Foundation for their expertise in vitality, civic engagement, and innovation in cities. In July 2015, Carol Coletta and Danny Harris arrived in Newport, RI, with their sleeves rolled up and ready to work with Catalyzing Newport’s stakeholders and community members to discuss strategies for enhancing participation in Newport’s civic and economic future. Like any person dropping in, it’s impossible to have the full context of those deeply immersed in the everyday issues.

Our catalysts are only able to gain impressions of a place during their short visit to Newport.

However, their extensive experience and expertise affords them an “entitled opinion” and provides a necessary reflective lens on the projects and ideas underway.

As urban catalysts, Coletta and Harris recognize community engagement as essential to enhancing quality of life and opportunity across all socioeconomic backgrounds. Coletta and Harris worked with Catalyzing Newport’s steering committee and local action team, as well as the City of Newport and engaged citizens to strategize ways to bridge Newport’s diverse and often divided communities to share in a vision for one Newport – an authentic historic working port city.

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Immersion Activities

Rhode Island struggles with the story it wants to tell about itself. We need to get over what

SETTING IN MOTION NEW IDEAS

the state is struggling with by

New Tactics to Promote Civic Innovation

using our history and the public humanities to inform a new narrative. ____ elizabeth francis, Executive Director Rhode Island Council for the Humanities

Civic officials, planners, and policymakers are all asking how their cities can cultivate a sense of promise, creativity, and momentum in order to attract innovators, entrepreneurs, and the increasingly important millennial age group. What makes a city stand out to these groups? They want affordability; walkability and bike lanes; proximity to community hubs such as restaurants, coffee shops, libraries, and museums; critical mass to support ideas and experiments; and access to leaders and decision makers to name just a few.

Transforming cities to actualize these wants does not happen overnight. Local governments need the support and cooperation of their citizens to move agendas forward.

Civic innovators engage citizens and governments in a variety of tactics to find creative solutions to community problems.

Throughout the week, Coletta and Harris discussed the strategies and tactics they use in their work with the Knight Cities Challenge to support civic innovation and economic development in the 26 cities across the US funded by Knight. Their methods reinforce a grassroots approach that builds momentum through inclusion and connectivity. Our Knight catalysts affirmed Catalyzing Newport’s model that convenes communities, builds networks, and supports the leadership needed to activate local champions and talent to foment positive change in Newport.

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Inviting people to participate, making it easier and more accessible for them to engage in issues of civic concern, and prototyping tiny experiments that can demonstrate near-term wins and build momentum are foundational to civic investment. Successful cities also breed an environment that is open to measured risk and failure. Municipalities often can’t invest in sweeping changes up front. Instead, they are experimenting with low-cost and often temporary prototyping projects, such as pop-ups, to trial new ideas.

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Immersion Local Action Team

The following individuals were selected to join Coletta and Harris’ local action team, not only for their expertise but for their qualities of being open-minded, entrepreneurial, and team-oriented. The group represented different positions and seniority within their institutions to promote coordination across organizations and build leadership.

MARY-KIM ARNOLD | Rhode Island Foundation Mary-Kim is Director of Evaluation and Learning at the Rhode Island Foundation where she previously led grantmaking work in arts and culture. Prior to joining the Foundation in 2011, Mary-Kim was executive director of the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities.

A published writer and poet, Mary-Kim also has taught expository and creative writing at Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Wheaton College. She holds an MFA in Writing from Brown University.

DAVID EVERETT | City of Providence David is Principal Planner at the City of Providence Department of Planning & Development where he concentrates on long-range planning, with particular focus on issues of environmental sustainability and resilience, in addition to neighborhood and comprehensive planning. Dave has been a professional planner, writer, and environmental advocate for over 25 years and holds a Masters of City Planning from MIT.

THERESA GUZMAN STOKES | 1696 Heritage Group Theresa is President and founding member of 1696 Heritage Group. She has a professional background that includes magazine editor and published writer with a focus on ethnic American history. She has participated in and supervised dozens of historic preservation, genealogical, and cultural resource investigations throughout New England and Virginia, with an expertise in African American, Latin American, and Jewish history and genealogy.

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JED HANCOCK-BRAINERD | Strange Attractor Theatre Jed is a Newport-anchored Providence-based theatre-maker who, in addition to acting locally at The Gamm, The Wilbury Group, Elemental Theatre Collective, and 2nd Story, is also one-fourth of the tri-coastal devising company, Strange Attractor, creating original theatre in Providence, Philadelphia, and Juneau, AK. Jed holds an MFA from the London International School of Performing Arts in Lecoq Based Actor Created Physical Theatre and a BFA in Theatre Arts from URI.

STEVE HEATH | FabNewport Steve is the Chairman of FabNewport and Catalyst at the East Bay Met School. He’s worked 20+ years in public and private schools, in Boston, Chicago and Rhode Island, creating hands-on learning environments. Steve thinks best when moving and is often seen riding a bicycle.

 Daniel Harris @dyuliharris: As per usual, creativity speaks through #PostIt notes. Sketching out vision for building creative culture in #Newport 2015/07/31

JESSICA WALSH | Women’s Resource Center Jessica is Director of Prevention at the Women’s Resource Center, where she manages the local DELTA FOCUS project in Newport, RI. Jessica facilitates strategies designed to decrease domestic violence by increasing community cohesion. She is responsible for evaluating prevention strategies as well as for increasing community evaluation capacity.

Jessica holds a BA from URI in Communication Studies and Sociology.

TRACY JONSSON | Newport Art House Tracy is the founder of Newport Art House, an emerging creative placemaking initiative. She also runs “salt,” a writing collaborative creating and empowering civil discourse and creative writing, is a published historian, and is a passionate advocate for the growth of the humanities as a social and economic development opportunity for Newport County. Tracy holds a BA from Roger Williams University in Historic Preservation.

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NICOLE POLLOCK | City of Providence

My work with Catalyzing Newport is already paying off. I met with the executive director of the Newport Art

JEREMY C. WELLS | Roger Williams University

Museum recently to discuss

Jeremy is an Assistant Professor in the Historic Preservation Program at Roger Williams University. His research addresses the sociocultural and experiential valuation of the historic environment and ways to assess these values, with a focus on participatory research, phenomenology, and mixed-methods, in order to inform planning practice for the historic environment. Jeremy received his PhD in Environmental Design and Planning from Clemson University and also holds an MS in Historic Preservation from the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Historic Preservation from Southeast Missouri State University.

a personal project. If I hadn’t made the connection and built the relationship through this project, I never would have thought I could approach the institution with an idea. ____ jed hancock-brainerd

Trinity Repertory Company

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Nicole is the City of Providence’s first Chief Innovation Officer. She is responsible for leading the City’s Innovation Initiative to improve and streamline city services, increase data transparency, and measure the effectiveness of the City’s processes and programs. Prior to her work with the City, Nicole oversaw policy and bond initiatives, communications, and program development for the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management. A graduate of Brown University, Nicole has remained active in the Providence community.

CARRIE ZASLOW | RI Local Initiative Support Corporation Carrie is a Program Officer at Rhode Island LISC where she is responsible for overseeing the Neighborhood Development Fund, LISC’s operating support and capacity building program, Commercial Corridor Program, and design and implementation of community development planning in neighborhoods including Woonsocket and the West End neighborhood in Providence. Carrie holds a BFA from Northern Michigan University and an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design.

The Sticky Notes Session

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Coletta and Harris worked closely with the local action team to translate their strategies in a way that was relevant to Newport and to take them from ideas into action. Their facilitated Design + Humanities workshop, a central component of Catalyzing Newport’s model, moved the local action team from introductory conversations into brainstorming and ideation and then into action with the formation of the group’s own “tiny experiment.”

Outlined here are some

CHALLENGES

of the key challenges and

– Newport is very fragmented, e.g., summer colony, commercial interests, military, migrants, Bailey’s Beach Club, and so on operate as disparate communities.

– Access and engagement with cultural and historical institutions by low- and middleincome residents are limited. The “Cultural Corridor” (Bellevue Avenue and Old Quarter) is separate from the places where low and middle-income residents of Newport live.

– Many residents believe that Newport’s historical and cultural assets are not for them because they are marketed to visiting audiences. Many were unaware that they could enter several of the institutions for free.

opportunities discussed with the catalysts in the brainstorming phase that informed the creation of their experiment.

OPPORTUNITIES – Access to ever-present history and beautiful natural and built environments that have authenticity and vibrancy.

– Historical working port city has been a center of exchange of ideas and commerce since its founding and still supports national and international networks and connectivity.

– Innovation initiatives spearheaded by the City are eager to leverage Newport’s authentic history of innovators and entrepreneurs to attract new enterprises today.

– Active, engaged citizens who value the opportunities and richness the cultural organizations nurture within the community.

– Cultural and heritage organizations hold the stories that can inspire the future in a world where storytelling is having greater impact in the public square.

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The Results Seed Grants | Experiments | Connections

SETTING IN MOTION NEW IDEAS The Tiny Experiment Emerges Inspired by a phrase used by Carol Coletta at the public forum on July 29th, the local action team sought an answer to the question of what “radical welcoming” would look like for Newport in general and more specifically for its historical and cultural organizations.

They also wondered what a Newport marketing campaign directed at locals would look like. In a merger of these two conversations, they realized that they needed to start with welcoming locals to their own civic and cultural organizations.

As a result, they devised a plan that would physically bring (by bus!) leaders and cultural producers from across the community to each of our steering committee sites to determine how locals could better engage with these assets. All of Catalyzing Newport’s steering committee members will welcome community members and showcase some potential underexplored sites at their venues that could be opened up for community programs.

The spaces could be a basement, backroom or attic; a lawn or garden; or another area not typically offered up for public programming. Many of the bus riders are cultural producers, makers, chefs, gardeners, athletes, etc., who have needs for venue space in Newport.

The goals of the experiment are to create new or deepen relationships with the hosting institutions; activate under-used space; provoke creative ideas and mash-ups; match local producers to appropriate venues; and of course model a Culture of Yes!

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Essay

A REFLECTION | Elizabeth Francis History + Placemaking Cities and their economies thrive when residents and visitors experience vitality, community, and diversity. Equally important to community development, though less well understood, is a sense of connection to history, through the stories linked to particular places and through the visible traces of the past in houses, museums, civic buildings, schools, parks and more. Catalyzing Newport is based on the recognition that history matters for Newport now. But it requires action, creativity, and innovation to make this happen. How do we connect the sense of the past to the challenges and opportunities for vitality and prosperity today? That is the essential question—and the promise—of Catalyzing Newport.

Many histories deeply influence Newport today. The city is recognized for its remarkable Colonial buildings, Victorian homes, and Gilded Age mansions. Newport is also known as having been a crucible of religious liberty, a hotbed for democratic ideas, a thriving arena for artisans, entrepreneurs, and businesspeople from many backgrounds, a magnet for intellectuals, writers, and artists, and a destination for the nation’s wealthy elite. Moreover, Newport’s maritime advantages enabled the city to become a prestigious site for naval education and commerce and one of the world’s premier sailing capitals.

Why does this matter? How do these identities and achievements connect to the challenges that Newport faces as a city today? These challenges include improving public education, reducing poverty and inequality, and planning for the future of the environment as well as urban development. Does Newport’s history matter for these very pressing, and very present, issues?

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By connecting Newport’s storied places and ideas, Catalyzing Newport’s network of leaders aim to enhance the experiences of visitors and residents and mobilize Newport’s historical assets for research, planning, and policy. In doing so, Catalyzing Newport is tackling a key problem: the sheer amount of Newport’s history and the multitude of ways that it is delivered has led to a fractured civic identity. We need to create a greater sense of connectedness in order to to take advantage of the richness of history for vitality and progress today. Catalyzing Newport creates a shared vision among the stewards of its historical and civic sites that connects the city’s many stories that matter, creates unifying themes related to topical issues, and mobilizes their distinctive contributions to help make Newport a vital and engaging place for residents and visitors alike.

Newport’s civic institutions were instrumental in constructing its civil society, and they are much more than relics of the good or bad old days. They hold our history, but they serve as beacons for the community as well -- to come together to critically examine ourselves, to build empathy and understanding among diverse people, and to imagine a future together.

Engaging the past in open, networked, and shared ways is already making a difference.

 Catalyzing Newport @CatalyzingNwpt: History, humanities, arts provide a sense of connection, they are what make us human @RIHistory @CatalyzingNwpt 2015/07/29

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Acknowledgments

Catalyzing Newport Steering Committee

Culture of Yes Local Action Team

Chelsea Buffington, Salve Regina University

Mary-Kim Arnold, Rhode Island Foundation

Trudy Coxe, The Preservation Society of Newport County

David Everett, City of Providence

Terry Dickinson, The Preservation Society of Newport County

Theresa Guzman Stokes, 1696 Heritage Group

Norah Diedrich, Newport Art Museum

Jed Hancock-Brainerd, Strange Attractor Theatre

Morgan Grefe, Rhode Island Historical Society

Steve Heath, FabLab Newport

Benedict Leca, Redwood Library & Athenaeum

Tracy Jonnson, Newport Art House

Pieter Roos, Newport Restoration Foundation

Nicole Pollock, City of Providence

Doug Stark, International Tennis Hall of Fame

Jessica Walsh, Women’s Resource Center

Catalyzing Newport Project Team Elizabeth Francis, Rhode Island Council for the Humanities SueEllen Kroll, Rhode Island Council for the Humanities Kathleen Shannon, Kathleen A. Shannon, LLC

Jeremy Wells, Roger Williams University Carrie Zaslow, Rhode Island Local Initiative Support Corporation Thank you to the following for their support and involvement Carol Coletta, Knight Foundation

Catalyzing Newport Advisors

Robyn Greene, Community College of Rhode Island

Paul Carroll, City of Newport

Danny Harris, Knight Foundation

Maureen Cronin, Worldways Social Marketing

Kristine Hendrickson, Salve Regina University Tanya Kelley, Place Studios

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Deborah Linnell, van Beuren Charitable Foundation Elizabeth Lynn, van Beuren Charitable Foundation Helen Papp, Newport Tree Society

THE VALUE & VALUES OF CATALYZING NEWPORT A Springboard for Conversation, Commitment, Participation, and Action Catalyzing Newport encourages those who are inspired by our forums and conversations to engage more fully with us though dialogue, attendance at our events, and via direct participation in one of our catalysts’ visits. Below are some of the core values we find helpful in guiding our work in Newport. We invite you to carry these over to your own community-based projects.

ALIGNING COMMUNITY yields increased friends and advocates EXTENDING NETWORKS builds professional relationships and takes down silos ACTIVATING NEW VOICES builds momentum for change INCREASING ACCESS to public and private spaces enhances civic life and engagement PROTOTYPING “TINY EXPERIMENTS” allows for measured risk-taking ENHANCED PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT breeds opportunity for staff MODELING A CULTURE OF YES builds community ATTRACTING TALENT & SCHOLARS requires access, innovation, and opportunities

FOR MORE INFORMATION catalyzingnewport.org | sue@rihumanities.org  Follow us @CatalyzingNwpt

www.catalyzingnewport.org

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