Storm's Newest Talk (available February 1, 2012)

The 7 Best Ways to Get

Local Government, Developers, and Citizens Working Together in Tough Times.
Engaging stakeholders is no longer enough: Here's how to make revitalization happen, even with severe budget shortfalls.

Storm has been researching community and regional regeneration--and natural resource restoration--since 1996. He's been working full-time in the field since 2002. Here are the 7 key lessons he's learned from communities around the world that have created rapid, resilient renewal in the face of three seemingly insurmountable challenges: 1) Lack of redevelopment funds; 2) Insufficient cooperation among community stakeholders; and 3) Lack of confidence in the community's future.

In addition to revealing these proven principles and practices, this talk will explore new trends and technologies that make applying these lessons far easier than they've ever been in the past.

This talk is available in all formats: 30/60-minute keynote, or 3/6-hour workshop.

Note: Storm is working on his third book, ReCivilizing, and is willing to stay an extra day in your community to interview local leaders for possible inclusion of their stories in the book.

Email Storm now to book this new talk for your conference.

Or call him at 202-684-6815 (Washington DC).

Talks based on Storm's earlier books:

For GENERAL AUDIENCES

(adults or students)

Business, Career, & Investment Opportunities

in the Fast-growing, Trillion-dollar

Global Restoration Economy.

This talk focuses on stories of people who earn their living restoring nature or revitalizing communities, whether as entrepreneurs, professionals, or investors. 

Storm will show your members how to renew their lives, careers, companies, and/or investment portfolios by renewing the world's multi-trillion-dollar inventory of "restorable assets".  

This is the ideal talk for students of almost any age.  Bombarded as they are by bad news about the environmental and economic future of the planet, young people hunger for insight into how they too can restore their world for a living.   This presentation is packed with dramatic before-and-after photos that show why our children can expect to live in a healthier, wealthier, more beautiful world...and how they can help make that happen. 

For TECHNICAL AUDIENCES

(policymakers, architects, engineers, project managers, planners, economic developers, private redevelopers, real estate investors, natural resource managers)

Integrative, Collaborative Designs & Strategies:

The leading edge of restorative development.

Three disruptive-but-positive trends are reshaping the design, planning, and implementation of projects in the 21st century, whether individual properties or landscape-scale initiatives:

1) asset renewal, 2) asset integration, and 3) stakeholder engagement. 

This talk is based partly on Storm's groundbreaking 2002 book, The Restoration Economy, and partly on his forthcoming book (due out in Spring of 2013).  It reveals the tremendous opportunities inherent in the challenges of three unstoppable global trends:

1. The shift from sprawl and virgin resource extraction to restorative development and resource restoration;

2. The shift towards integrative strategies that renewal the natural, built, and socioeconomic environments together;

3. The shift towards effectively engaging all stakeholders.

Storm focuses more on how your discipline can become a vital contributor to the rapid, resilient renewal of communities and regions.  The Restoration Economy was the first book to document the 8 giant, fast-growing industries that are renewing our natural and built environments. These technical talks can be tailored to focus on one--or any combination of--the following sectors of restorative development:

• Ecosystem restoration

• Watershed restoration

• Fishery restoration

• Agricultural renewal

• Brownfields remediation & redevelopment

• Infrastructure renewal (transportation, energy, communications, water, waste, etc.)

• Historic structure restoration & reuse

• Catastrophe reconstruction & recovery  

3-Hour Intensives: For a deeper learning experience, Storm offers a 3-hour "Intensive."  It starts with an extended (90-minute or 2-hour: your choice) version of the appropriate keynote.  It's followed by a 60 or 90-minute (your choice) Q&A/discussion session that allows your audience to explore the material in depth.  The Intensive can be free-ranging, or can be focused on any specific community or organizational challenge you wish to address. 

You can use the Intensive to generate extra revenue at your event.  For example, you can have Storm keynote the start of your event.  You could then offer this 3-hour Intensive as a separate-registration event at the end of the event, for those who wish to dive into the details in a more intimate setting.  

For Nonprofits & Community Foundations

Does your organization focus on some aspect of economic growth, quality of life, or environmental health?  Would like to reposition your non-profit or foundation at the heart of a collaborative ongoing revitalization program?

If so, this 3-hour organizational strategy workshop is for you.

HOW TO USE A CITIZEN-LED REVITALIZATION PROGRAM
TO GROW YOUR NON-PROFIT OR LOCAL FOUNDATION

• Local governments are starving for redevelopment funds.

• Environmental groups are desperate for more public support.

• Community/downtown revitalization groups are striving for more influence over their local future.

These tough times--and the emergence of powerful new web tools--set the stage for the rise of civic renewal.  Learn how to quickly transform your non-profit or foundation for more influence, funding, and effectiveness in this 3-hour workshop.

Program-related investments. Impact investing. Donor-guided investing. L3C. Crowdfunding. Crowdsourcing. Crowdmapping. Civic renewal. What do they all have in common?

They are all fast-emerging tools that enable local non-profits and foundations to tap vast new sources of funding, while simultaneously developing far more effective programs.

Cities often spend $200,000 - $500,000 on new (or updated) comprehensive plans every 5-10 years, only to see them gather dust on a shelf.  They also spend millions--sometime billions--on redevelopment projects that fail to trigger community revitalization. The solution in both cases is to create an ongoing, comprehensive revitalization program to ensure that plans, policies, and projects achieve their goals. But few communities know how to do this.

The irony is that a program costs little to create and maintain: the capital-intensive work is the planning and projects. But they save huge amounts of money--and create better community results. How? By housing all the vital public engagement and "silo" integration. 

• It makes no sense for each new project or planning process to have to engage the public.

• It makes no sense for each new project or planning process to have to integrate the plethora of agencies and groups working on different aspects of renewing your natural, built, and socioeconomic environments.

• It makes no sense for each new project or planning process to facilitate a new "shared vision" to guide strategy.

Such engagement and integration should be the domain of ongoing, citizen-owned revitalization programs. And your non-profit or foundation could host it. This fast-moving, eminently practical workshop addresses the challenge of creating comprehensive, collaborative, self-funding community (or regional) revitalization programs.

It also addresses two key issues of vital interest to the future of your community or region:

1. Many individuals & institutions contribute valuable skills and resources to revitalization efforts: planning departments, economic development agencies, political leaders, Chambers of Commerce, sustainability/"smart growth" groups, etc.  But, few have the training to create or run what communities really need: a comprehensive, ongoing revitalization program. Most lack the mission and/or budget to design, fund, and implement a program that renews your natural, built, and socioeconomic environments together. Communities spend large amounts of time and money creating plans, only to see the vast majority of them fail...or fail to be implemented. This is because comprehensive plans and projects are often helpless without a program to support them. 

2. How communities (or regions) can use civic renewal to achieve the "Holy Grail": the point where revitalization hits "critical mass" and becomes self-accelerating. This positive feedback loop is the reason some communities spend millions--even billions--on redevelopment, and yet never reach the point where revitalization begets revitalization. It determines whether you'll get a fleeting burst of renewal, or rapid, resilient renewal. New Web 2.0 tools such as social media, crowdsourcing, and crowdfunding are finally making this kind of massive collaboration possible.

Learn more about this powerful new strategy for non-profits and community foundations in this excerpt from Storm Cunningham's upcoming third book, ReCivilizing.

All-day Workshops: Storm also conducts 6-hour workshops, with the format and content designed according to your needs. This is the ultimate regenerative learning experience. 

The above talks, Intensive, and Workshop can be further customized to focus more heavily on certain subjects of particular interest to your audience, such as:

• Economic stimulus strategies

• Natural resource restoration

• Community & regional revitalization

• Building economic growth without ugly sprawl or unsustainable resource extraction

• Our global economic, environmental, technological, & sociological future

• New & emerging business & investment opportunities

• Visions & plans for integrated post-catastrophe recovery

• Public policy to renew natural, built, & cultural environments

• Strategies for local, regional, national, & global economic development

• Renewal of community assets (heritage, brownfields, infrastructure, & culture)

• Renewal of planetary assets (ecosystems, watersheds, fisheries, agricultural lands)