Staff Spotlight: Learning from the 2024 Community Transformation Workshop in Iowa
Article by Aoife Harte
Associate Research Analyst for Main Street America
(Our executive director had the opportunity to attend this workshop in October.)
On October 15, 2024, Main Street leaders from across the country gathered in Nevada, Iowa, for the first day of the Community Transformation Workshop, an intensive and interactive two-day educational experience offered by the Main Street America Institute.
Informed by participant feedback and current efforts to refresh the Main Street America Institute, this year’s workshop featured many improvements. Notably, new and improved data products were unveiled, giving participants something concrete and personalized to bring back to their communities. At the same time, key components were retained — most importantly, exploring and learning with local Main Streets. I was fortunate to attend this CTW, and I feel both inspired and invigorated by the experience.
New Data Products
For this workshop, Main Street America’s Research team unveiled the Data Snapshot. This new infographic-style data packet is more visual, digestible, and shareable than our previous data presentations. Featuring data specific to Nevada, Iowa, the Data Snapshot compiled demographic, economic, tourism, and survey data from Esri, Placer.ai, U.S. Census, and the Main Street Community Survey. Further, each participant received a personalized mini-Data Snapshot that featured many of the same data points from their communities.
With their community’s data in their hands, participants were able to apply market analysis techniques presented at the workshop and think critically about whether the data in their mini-Data Snapshot reflected what they saw in their communities and how it could shape their transformation strategy.
Exploring Local Districts
A key component of the Community Transformation Workshop is the district exploration, where participants get the opportunity to explore the local Main Street district and converse with business owners, employees, visitors, and residents. This year, participants explored downtown Nevada, Iowa, visiting the many local businesses (especially bakeries!). When we reconvened, participants shared their insights from their conversations, including the sentiments they heard regarding the business mix, the downtown streetscape, and potential opportunities for vacant buildings.
This activity is similar to the focus groups that Main Street America (MSA) staff lead during transformation strategy identification visits, where MSA and local program staff converse with business owners, property owners, residents, and elected officials. The district exploration segment of the workshop provides insight into the attitudes and opinions of critical stakeholders. By pairing the qualitative data from these conversations with community survey, demographic, and market data, we can understand a district’s challenges and opportunities for growth.
Workshop Takeaways
The first day of the workshop began with an important question: “What do you want to learn from this workshop?” Many participants said they wanted to understand transformation strategies and how to implement them in their communities. Others wanted to learn how to interpret and leverage their data effectively. Here are a couple thoughts that participants shared afterward:
“The workshop highlighted the interconnectedness of the Four Points — Organization, Design, Promotion, and Economic Vitality. I plan to apply this holistic approach…by ensuring that our initiatives across these areas are aligned and supportive of one another, ultimately creating a more cohesive and vibrant community.”
“I gained the confidence needed to steer my board away from saying ‘yes’ to everything and becoming a catch-all events organization. We must prioritize our goals and align our activities with our developed transformation strategies. By doing so, we will empower our district stakeholders to be part of the change, rather than simply implementing change for them.”
One of my biggest takeaways was listening to Senior Program Officer Lisa Mullins Thompsons’ presentation on transformation strategies on the final day. I learned that transformation strategies are a means of focusing the way that Main Street programs do their work so that they can identify the needs of their communities and strategically direct their energy, operations, and resources to accomplish their goals.”
The Community Transformation Workshop is offered annually each fall.