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Just Announced: John Bry Named 2023 Mary Means Leadership Award Recipient

March 29, 2023 | Just Announced: John Bry Named 2023 Mary Means Leadership Award Recipient Left: John Bry presents County Proclamations to representatives from Madison Heights in recognition of the organization joining the MSOC network. Right: John Bry serving as the master of ceremonies at Main Street Oakland County's annual Main Event in 2019, with Bret Rasegan, Oakland County Planning Division Manager assisting. Courtesy of Main Street Oakland County. Main Street America is proud to recognize John Bry, Program Coordinator at Main Street Oakland County (MSOC) in Michigan, as the 2023 Mary Means Leadership Award recipient. This prestigious ...

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Main Spotlight: Announcing the 2023 Great American Main Street Award Winners

Main Street America is proud to recognize River District Association in Danville, Virginia; Downtown Florence Main Street in Florence, South Carolina; and Metuchen Downtown Alliance (MDA) in Metuchen, New Jersey, as the 2023 Great American Main Street Award (GAMSA) winners. This prestigious award is the nation’s top award recognizing communities for their excellence in comprehensive preservation-based commercial district revitalization. The 2023 GAMSA designations, sponsored by The Hartford, were presented on March 27, 2023, at the opening plenary for the Main Street Now conference in Boston, Massachusetts. “Danville, Florence, and Metuchen demonstrate ...

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Announcing the Equitable Entrepreneurial Ecosystems for Rural Main Streets Program Grantees

March 27, 2023 | Announcing the Equitable Entrepreneurial Ecosystems for Rural Main Streets Program Grantees | Main Street America is pleased to announce the grantees of the Equitable Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in Rural Main Streets Program, supported by the Kauffman Foundation . This program leverages MSA’s past work in ecosystem building and combines organizational partnerships with Forward Cities for greater equity and inclusiveness, as well as professional development training in entrepreneurial-led development through the International Economic Development Council . “Rural communities across the country are confronting the difficult task ...

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Top 50 (or so) Things To Do in Boston, by Bostonians

March 22, 2023 | Top 50 (or so) Things To Do in Boston, by Bostonians | By: Boston Main Streets Directors The former Bank of America in Upham's Corner decorated to celebrate arts and culture in the district. Credit: Keiko Hiromi. The City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion (OEOI) and Boston Main Streets Foundation are incredibly excited to co-host the 2023 Main Street Now Conference alongside Main Street America in Boston, Massachusetts, from March 27-29. Get to know us and our city of Main Streets through this final article of the conference blog series! Keep reading to learn more about each Boston ...

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Main Spotlight: Mill Girls and the Iconic New England Mill

March 21, 2023 | Main Spotlight: Mill Girls and the Iconic New England Mill | By: Marta Olmos, Communications Coordinator at Main Street America | Mill girls. Photo from Library of Congress. The New England Mill is an iconic landmark of American history. As industrialization rolled across the landscape, these mills brought new opportunities for women, often called 'mill girls,' and transformed the communities they were located within. Although manufacturing has moved away from the region, these mammoth structures still hold a significant cultural and physical place in their communities, and redevelopment projects in multiple Main Street districts ...

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American Express Backing Small Businesses Grant Now Open

March 20, 2023 | American Express Backing Small Business Grant Now Open | Main Street America and American Express are pleased to announce that applications for the Backing Small Businesses Grant are now open now through Friday, April 7! The grant program will award $2.3 million in small business grants to 350 eligible businesses in the U.S. and territories. In 2021, American Express and Main Street America created the grant program to help economically vulnerable U.S. small business owners recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and grow their businesses. To date, the program provided $1.65 million in grants to 330 small business owners across the ...

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Community Spotlight: The Women of Chinatown

March 17, 2023 | Community Spotlight: The Women of Chinatown | By: Marta Olmos, Communications Coordinator at Main Street America | Chinatown Gate. Photo by Kyle Klein. “Back in the day, in the 1800s, and really up until the 1940s, 50s, 60s, it was only men.” Debbie Ho, Executive Director of Boston’s Chinatown Main Street , knows the history of her district well. As I speak with her, the history of Boston’s Chinatown feels real and tangible—animated by her presence within it. Although the district, like many Chinatowns across the country, was originally founded and populated predominately by men, it’s the stories of the powerful women, like Debbie, ...

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25 New Towns Selected to Receive T-Mobile Hometown Grants for Local Initiatives

March 16, 2023 | 25 New Towns Selected to Receive T-Mobile Hometown Grants for Local Initiatives | T-Mobile continues to deliver on its massive 5-year commitment to small towns. Today, they announced its next round of 25 Hometown Grant winners and their projects: • Wickenburg, Ariz.: Create the Kid's Corral Play to Learn Space at the Wickenburg Public Library to encourage exploration and promote literacy development opportunities for community youth. • Yreka, Calif.: Retrofit the Siskiyou Community Food Bank with necessary food transportation equipment and storage to address food insecurity and support the Siskiyou ...

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Main Spotlight: A New Housing Guidebook for Local Leaders

March 16, 2023 | Main Spotlight: A New Housing Guidebook for Local Leaders | By Michael Powe, Ph.D., Senior Director of Research, and Emi Morita, Research Analyst | Virtually all U.S. cities and towns today are experiencing housing challenges, whether related to limited housing availability, limited housing affordability, or both. The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, also known as Freddie Mac, estimates that the U.S. currently has a shortage of 3.8 million housing units. Nearly half of Americans say the availability of affordable housing is a major problem in their local community, according to Pew. Main Street America’s own survey ...

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Two Years of ARPA on Main Street

March 9, 2023 | Two Years of ARPA on Main Street | By: Kelly Humrichouser, Director of Government Relations at Main Street America | In March of 2021, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) into law. This package, aimed to provide immediate relief to communities, businesses, and families in the face of COVID-19 economic and social impacts, was a broad and ambitious step towards recovery. A major piece of the legislation was the State and Local Fiscal Relief Fund (SLFRF), $350 billion divided and dispersed to every state, county, and municipality in the country. As these relief dollars became available to governments, many Main ...

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Spring 2023 Small Business Survey

March 8, 2023 | Spring 2023 Small Business Survey | Hello Main Street, Today, Main Street America is launching our Spring 2023 Small Business Survey , and we need your help sharing the survey with entrepreneurs in your downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts. Over the past few years, our small business surveys have improved our understanding of the hardships small business owners are facing and helped us craft new approaches to bolster the economic vitality of Main Streets. The survey data is hugely important to our advocacy efforts and to our development of new grant programs, diagnostic tools, and trainings. The quick, ten-minute ...

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Main Spotlight: Insights from the 2023 Trends Survey

March 7, 2023 | Main Spotlight: Insights from the 2023 Trends Survey | By: Michael Powe, Ph.D., Senior Director of Research at Main Street America | In January, the Main Street America research team launched our latest Main Street Trends Survey focused on understanding the landscape of local Main Street programs operating around the country. The 2023 Trends survey represents the 15th Trends Survey conducted by MSA since 2005, and the first since May of 2021. We received 367 completed surveys from Main Street leaders in 41 states. To incentivize participation, we decided to offer a free conference registration to one local program leader who submitted ...

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Celebrating the Women Who Make History on Main Streets

March 3, 2023 | Celebrating the Women Who Make History on Main Streets | Women have always played an influential role in the creation and cultivation of vibrant communities, and the Main Street Movement is no exception. March is Women's History Month, and to celebrate, we invite you to share the stories of women who make history on your Main Street. From the powerful woman who laid the foundations for your district in the past or the present-day women who are leading the way to a brighter future, we want you to celebrate the women of your Main Street community and share their stories. We invite you to use the hashtag #MainStreetWomensHistory ...

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Community Spotlight: BLOOM Business Empowerment Center

March 3, 2023 | Community Spotlight: BLOOM Business Empowerment Center | By: Sully Pinos, Executive Director of the BLOOM Business Empowerment Center | Graduates of a BLOOM course. Photo courtesy of Sully Pinos. In 2018, Downtown York PA’s Main Street organization, Downtown Inc , and the county’s economic development organization, the York County Economic Alliance (YCEA) joined forces in a formal partnership. Since the announcement of this strategic affiliation, the capacity of both organizations has grown exponentially, leveraging greater prosperity and development for both Downtown York and York County. Leveraging best practices from the Main Street ...

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Main Spotlight: Fresh Takeaways on the State of Main Street Housing

March 1, 2023 | Main Spotlight: Fresh Takeaways on the State of Main Street Housing | By: Michael Powe, Ph.D., Senior Director of Research at Main Street America, and Emi Morita, Research Analyst at Main Street America | Last May, the Main Street America research team released a comprehensive, data-centric report focused on the state of housing in Main Street downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts. The report was the first network-facing component of our “At Home on Main Street” initiative, funded by the 1772 Foundation. This research initiative is focused on strengthening our understanding of housing in Main Streets across the country ...

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Allied Member Spotlight: How To Turn Blog Posts into Social Media Content

February 23, 2023 | Allied Member Spotlight: How To Turn Blog Posts into Social Media Content | By: Sheila Scarborough, co-founder of Tourism Currents | YouTube Shorts can be made from repurposed Instagram Reels. Photo by Sheila Scarborough. The world of Main Street social media marketing is constantly changing - which is exhausting enough - but it also demands regular, consistent posting and content creation. Who has time for all that? You do, but only if you’re smart about re-purposing the stories you tell through the content you create. At Main Street Now 2022 in Richmond, I talked about using social media marketing for economic development, ...

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Backing Small Business Grantee Stories: Anew Life Prosthetics and Orthotics

February 23, 2023 | Backing Small Businesses Grantee Stories: Anew Life Prosthetics and Orthotics The American Express Backing Small Businesses grant program will launch its second year on Monday, March 20, with $2.3 million in grants available to eligible small business owners across the U.S. and territories. The grant program, formerly known as Inclusive Backing, began in 2021 to help underrepresented small business owners recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and grow their businesses. Now in its second year, the program is increasing the number of grants awarded and total funding to further support small business owners – this time, with a ...

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Announcing the GM on Main Street Grant Program Awardees

February 22, 2023 | Announcing the GM on Main Street Grant Program Awardees | The GM on Main Street Grant Program has awarded six $25,000 grants to nonprofit organizations and municipal government entities to implement innovative placemaking initiatives in their local districts. Made possible by General Motors, this grant program prioritized applications that were place-making focused, innovative, inclusive, feasible, and replicable or easily scalable for other Main Street programs. “General Motors is proud to have collaborated with Main Street America to support nonprofits and municipal government entities as they introduce place-making ...

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Main Spotlight: The Power of Collaboration: How the Boston Main Streets Foundation Serves the Community as a Public-Private Partnership

February 21, 2023 | Main Spotlight: The Power of Collaboration: How the Boston Main Streets Foundation Serves the Community as a Public-Private Partnership | By Mika Gross, Foundation Coordinator at Boston Main Streets Foundation The Mayor’s Enchanted Trolley Tour stops at Wolcott Square in Hyde Park, December 2022. Courtesy of Mike Mejia for the Mayor of Boston’s Office. The City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Economic Opportunity and Inclusion (OEOI) and Boston Main Streets Foundation are incredibly excited to co-host the 2023 Main Street Now Conference alongside Main Street America in Boston, Massachusetts, from March 27-29. Get to ...

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The Small Deal Survey: What We Learned

February 15, 2023 | The Small Deal Survey: What We Learned | By: Patrice Frey, Senior Advisor at Main Street America | As readers of the MSA Blog will know, I’m excited to lead Main Street America’s Small Deal Initiative. This project explores barriers to small-scale real estate development projects across our Main Streets and identifies ways to help our Network overcome these challenges. We define small deals as those under $5M in total project costs, though we recognize many Main Street projects fall well below that threshold. At one time or another, nearly all Main Streets will encounter real estate development projects that are difficult (if ...

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