Giving to Place on Giving Tuesday: 8+ Amazing Orgs Helping Foster Just, Thriving Places
We are THRILLED to bring back our Giving Tuesday Guide! Eight years ago, State of Place started compiling a list of organizations fighting the good fight for better places that deserve our support - always - but especially on Giving Tuesday! While we had a little hiatus last year, we are back this year (with contributions to this list across our team) and encourage you to consider supporting these amazing organizations in their efforts to create more livable, sustainable, and EQUITABLE places people deserve.
Smart Growth America
There’s not a Giving Tuesday that goes by that we don’t encourage you to support one of our favorite organizations fighting the good fight for more equitable, accessible, and resilient places! At the core of Smart Growth America’s (SGA) overall approach is empowering communities through direct technical assistance, powerful advocacy, and thought leadership to realize their vision of fostering livable places, healthy people, and shared prosperity. SGA currently focuses on three specific priorities: climate change and resilience, advancing racial equity, and creating healthy communities. They rely on an interdisciplinary approach across a span of interrelated areas: housing, zoning, planning, land use, economic development, transportation, and others, recognizing the whole is bigger than the sum of its parts nature of equitable citymaking (we see you!). They are now reknown for their annual Equity Summit, being held IN-PERSON for the first time in the Spring of 2023. This Giving Tuesday, we hope you consider donating to SGA so they can continue their critical work. For our part, having worked with SGA on a project that kicked off our AI-powered urban design data collection in 2020, we have some solid ideas of how we can re-up that partnership in 2024!
Urban Artworks
(Submitted by Linda Heidvogel)
As I considered an organization to encourage others to donate to, I immediately went to the type of placemaking that feels most near and dear to me: public art. Not only can it enliven and beautify, offer a historical narrative unique to a place, and foster a strong community for its residents, but data shows that it also benefits by improving public safety and increasing well-being. There isn’t a more significant win-win situation than that if you ask me! While my recommendation, Urban Artworks, is specific to the state where I live, I encourage everyone to support public art in their communities in any way possible.
From their website: "In over 25 years of service to Washington state, Urban Artworks has worked with marginalized youth, diverse and emerging artists, businesses, and communities to collaboratively transform our public spaces. Our youth programs have helped thousands of young people gain art and employment skills, deepen connections with the community, and expand their self-efficacy."
Project for Public Spaces
(Submitted by Ashley Then)
Consider making a positive impact on community life by supporting Project for Public Spaces (PPS) with your donation. In a world of constant change, PPS has been at the forefront of creating and sustaining public spaces that foster vibrant, people-filled environments. By encouraging the development of inclusive and engaging public spaces, PPS actively contributes to the well-being of individuals and the social fabric of our neighborhoods. Your donation becomes a catalyst for placemaking strategies that not only enhance the quality of urban spaces but also inspire a sense of belonging and community.
The TRust for Public Land
Another organization that regularly makes this list, The Trust for Public Land (TPL), has been spearheading efforts to ensure that all people can access nature and the outdoors, close to home, in the cities and communities where they live - as a matter of health, equity, and justice. Not only that, they are (also) fans of data and evidence, putting out important and influential work quantifying spatial inequities tied to park access. From helping to raise funds for conservation; to protecting and restoring natural spaces; to collaborating with communities to plan, design, and create parks, playgrounds, gardens, and trails; TPL works with communities to ensure that development happens for them, and not to them. At a time when the value of access to parks and public spaces - and the inequitable access to these places by marginalized communities - has never been more glaringly clear, we hope you consider donating to them!
Seamless Bay Area
(Submitted by Max Kolotinsky)
The non-profit that I would like to shine a spotlight on is called Seamless Bay Area. This organization stands out for its commitment to creating a unified and equitable transportation system in the Bay Area. Driven by a mission to ensure that all residents have access to reliable, affordable, and environmentally sustainable transportation options, Seamless Bay Area is actively working towards an inclusive and accessible transportation network throughout the region. This cause holds deep personal significance for me as a Bay Area native, especially in light of the skyrocketing cost of living in the area. As the Bay Area becomes increasingly expensive, the challenges of commuting become exponentially more difficult, particularly for those who rely on personal vehicles. The significance of this issue cannot be overstated, and the establishment of a reliable public transportation infrastructure has the potential to transform the lives of millions, while fostering a more connected and resilient community.
Urban Institute
Another regular on this list, the Urban Institute has provided policymakers and practitioners with the evidence-based, nonpartisan research they need to make smart decisions and implement practical solutions. Best of all, they have spatial equity embedded in their mission statement: “We are truth seekers, problem solvers, and strategic advisers. We are driven by a passion to ensure that everyone—regardless of income, race or ethnicity, education, or zip code—has the chance to achieve their highest potential.” The consistently put out critical research on topics as wide ranging as community engagement to mobility to the social determinants of health. They’re also an org we SO hope to be able to partner with in 2024! We hope you consider donating to them to help them continue to use evidence to usher in a more just world.
Coalition for the Homeless
Submitted by Malena
Coalition for the Homeless is a charity organization that supports living humanely. It is one of the nation's oldest homeless advocacy and direct service organizations. They fight for investments, developments, and implementations of humane and cost-effective strategies to help end the mass homelessness in New York City. It is a great organization to support in their efforts to advocate for people struggling with housing maintaining a good quality of life.
CENTER FOR NEIGHBORHOOD TECHNOLOGY
The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) is a non-profit pushing sustainable initiatives regarding transportation, water, climate, and public policy at the forefront of urban development. Serving as coaches and advisors to city leaders, CNT provides crucial research and data to government officials during the planning processes, ensuring their efforts promote sustainable economic development and urban resilience. CNT works to expand and improve public transit and bike systems, as well as advocate for pedestrian centered spaces in order to encourage walkable urban spaces. They tackle water management by introducing innovative policies that protect communities vulnerable to extreme weather events. Partnering with transit-oriented development and cargo-oriented development, CNT restructures the way cities are built, focusing on promoting development around transit stations and stabilizing industrial neighborhoods. As with others in this Giving Tuesday who’s who list, we at State of Place at professionally benefitted from CNT’s open data, having integrated it into a project we are conducted with San Jose State University, via the Mineta Transportation Institute for CalTrans, in which we collected urban design data (using our automated visual machine learning based data collection!) throughout Northern and Southern California and tied that to VMT (vehicle miles traveled). So any donations to them will help them support providing access to this important data! We hope you consider donating to CNT this Giving Tuesday.
State of Place
While State of Place is not a non-profit organization (despite being deeply mission-oriented), in 2024, we will be working with several non-profits to spearhead a series of fundraising efforts to implement three critical research projects to quantify the exponential power of place in Houston, LA, and the DC Metro region. These projects will all deliver critical evidence-based development, policy, regulatory, and investment guidance for how to equitably optimize the social, health, economic, and environmental value of communities, as well as provide the numbers to explain the “why” behind these decisions to facilitate the approvals, financing, and buy-in needed to make just, thriving, resilient places a reality! These research efforts will also translate into community-led engagement approaches to allow for the co-creation of decisions that will address the various existential issues we are facing, including climate change, public health and safety, and income inequality. To find out more about these projects and/or to inquire about how to support them, please contact mariela@stateofplace.co.
And to learn more in general about how State of Place’s technology allows private and public sector citymakers to quantify - and optimize - economic, environmental, health, and social value of their plans, projects, and investments, using community-led, data-driven, evidence-based approaches, check out our process here and/or contact us to learn more and get a demo! :)