Greetings for the New Year!
We hope your holiday was rejuvenating with plenty of opportunities to enjoy the outdoors.
As we enter 2022, parks will continue to play an essential role in supporting our mental, physical, and spiritual well-being during these uncertain times. Resilient communities depend on park and recreation leaders who serve on the frontlines, responding to pressing needs, from food distribution to childcare, and who provide recreational programming and the park and play spaces that help people not only cope but also thrive despite our health and climate challenges. Thank you for all that you do.
City Parks Alliance will continue to bring together and support the array of multi-sector leaders—from community advocates and park and design professionals to mayors—who are essential to building robust urban park and recreation systems. We have another exciting year of programming planned to help you and your organization learn from your peers, connect with important resources and cutting-edge information, and gain access to funding.
This month, we feature a webinar on non-traditional sources of park funding and a peer-to-peer conversation on building trust with philanthropic partners. And there’s more to come, including:
- Skills-building workshops that focus on developing high-impact park partnerships, creating effective citywide park advocacy strategies, creating data-driven equitable investment strategies, and driving change through collaborative governance
- Webinars and peer-to-peers around the theme of inclusive resilience and recovery—from community economic development and parks to creating culturally relevant programming
- New advocacy tools to help you make the case to elected officials that parks are essential multi-use infrastructure
- The Greater & Greener conference in Philadelphia, June 18-21, 2022. Be sure to sign up when early-bird registration opens in early February!
- A park study tour in Austin, TX, in November
- Updates to ParkXChange resources, the Equitable Park Funding Hub, and
- More applied research through reports.
We will continue to advocate for urban park funding in infrastructure legislation–in partnership with our members, peer national organizations, and Mayors for Parks coalition–and keep you updated on the Outdoor Resources Legacy Partnership, which provides federal dollars for parks in under-resourced communities nationwide.
Lastly, the City Parks Alliance board of directors will be engaged in strategic planning to position the organization for relevancy and the greatest impact in the years to come.
Thank you for your continued support of City Parks Alliance and for your important work to make our cities and neighborhoods great places to live for all.
Warm regards,
Catherine Nagel
Executive Director
