Collective Regional Impact

Achieving More, Together

We believe public investment has greater impact when it is directed to embedded organizations that stay with the work. This is people-centered, creativity-focused community & economic development.

Learn How to Get Started in Your Community

  • Small & Smart.

    By pulling together a collaborative network of small-and-smart ecosystems, we respect local ownership and culture while streamlining resources. This enables CREATE to move our talents and resources across the network to provide services and expertise often unaffordable or unavailable for any one place.

  • Agile.

    We paid attention to systems and services that are consistent across innovation-based organizations. Our expertise is change. We structured CREATE to take advantage of the accessibility of information so that we can produce high-need medical equipment, support a tech business, and cover a community in murals as long as it is structured.

  • Designed to Deliver.

    We’ve intentionally created a funding model that requires success. Membership fees alone aren’t enough to support this work. Our standing in your community is directly tied to our activation of projects and partnerships. If we can’t deliver, we won’t thrive!

 

Flow is the nature of energy; flow is another name of life.

BANANI RAY

 
 

Collective Impact

Our community activation process is informed by the movement of water through river systems. We embed fluid and responsive strategies that turn future opportunities into vibrant places, projects, businesses, and programs.

The process.

 

+ Intake & Infrastructure

Your CREATE experience will start with an intake process that establishes the tools and systems you need to thrive. We will work with you to activate a Board of Visionaries (BOV), a Resource Management Team (RMT), and possible Spring Boards; to identify a physical location and resources to support this work; and to set up online community engagement tools including social media accounts, fundraising pages, and messege boards that make it easy for creative people in your community to connect to this work.

+ Regional Network & Opportunity Mapping

The CREATE team will help your community connect to a larger network of resources and opportunity mapping across Central and North Central Wisconsin. Opportunity Mapping helps connect local ideas and opportunties to regional artists, organizations, grassroots groups, or potential start-up and small businesses who can mutually benefit from shared resources and opportunities.

+ Project Activation

We know how to get things done and will gladly leverage that know-how when it benefits your community’s vision. In the situation that the right owners within your ecosystem do not reveal themselves, CREATE is there to take on the activation of a project. Should our activation inspire an individual or group to take over what we've started, CREATE will gladly hand off the reins to a local owner and focus on whatever big ideas come next. CREATE believes in outcomes more than ownership. We invest our energy into the success of projects regardless of who owns them. We want to see objectives reached and the community thrive more than we care who gets credit for the work.

+ Network Resources

Communities and orginizations that sign a Shared Resource Agreement with CREATE join our collaborative network of Innovation Centers, and gain access to additional resources that run network-wide, including…

  • Grant writing services for projects that support multiple communities
  • A regionally-collaborative team of Resident Creatives
  • Support and cross-promotion of shared projects and programming
  • Access to spaces and projects developed in other communities
  • Shared technical and creative resources
  • Added scale and value for local membership
  • other challenges and experiences designed to pull people into your creative ecosystem or better support them once they are there.