Our Projects
CURRENT & PAST projects
Project: Urban [re]generation lab™
YeaR: 2017 - Present
Where: Detroit, Michigan
For More Project Info: Urban Regeneration Lab
Project Description:
Urban [Re]Generation Lab™ is a part think-tank, part do-ers lab platform based on our living systems “Roots” approach that is focused on the people, memory, stories, and data found within place. We offer place-based multigenerational programs to build capacity and skills in civics, communications, & design. Partnering with communities to develop civic/social tools, leading edge research, and exhibitions that aim to influence planning, policy, urban revitalization, and effect regenerative change from the roots up.
We work together with multigenerational intersectional communities, civic + industry leaders, teachers + schools, and other nonprofits to co-design and deliver URL programs. For more information, please contact adriane@roots2change.org
Project: CENTRAL NEW MEXICO COMMUNITY COLLEGE
Year: 2016 - Present
Where: Albuquerque, New Mexico
For More Project Info: ashley@roots2change.org
Project Description:
Currently Roots2Change is working with Central New Mexico Community College to provide competency-based education in three arenas: Retail Management Certificate, CNM Flex - offering the Core Classes for an AA degree in a CBE format, and A+ Computing Certification.
We work with administrators and teachers to design and deliver CBE classes on the Cognify Learning Management System. For more information, contact ashley@roots2change.org
Project: IN Santa Fe
Year: 2014 - Present
Where: Santa Fe, New Mexico
For More Project Info: nicholas@roots2change.org
Project Description:
IN Place is an evolving resource platform that partners with existing business, finance, public, and philanthropic entities to build robust place-sourced impact investing ecosystems for growing the health and wealth of our local communities. IN Place is currently in its alpha prototype phase, focused on the Santa Fe region (through it’s IN Santa Fe program) to catalyze a local impact investing ecosystem. Our work to date has focused on:
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Identifying local gaps in the infrastructure, connective tissue, and systems for supporting local impact investing
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Facilitation of local educational forums and programming to build awareness and stakeholdership among businesses and financial sectors (public, private, and philanthropic) for helping these stakeholders grow their impact effectiveness in connection to place
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Partnering with key local institutions to fill gaps that have been identified in business support programming and local impact metrics
Currently:
IN Santa Fe is currently in a strategic planning process to identify key leveraged programming areas moving forward. Possible new programming that is actively being explored include:
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Partnering with Santa Fe Community Foundation to set up a local donor-advised impact investing fund, tailored toward creating an easy, low-threshold-of-entry opportunity for philanthropists to begin participating in place-based impact investing
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Research and development of a local impact enterprise database organized around key impact areas (e.g. water, new energy, education, housing and land-use, etc.) to help connect potential investors with local enterprises
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Partnering with Santa Fe Green Chamber to develop and run a “local impact” leadership development series tailored toward existing business leaders interested in leveraging their value-adding impact in the Santa Fe Region.
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Partnering with Santa Fe Art Institute to integrate materials and processes (that were prototyped in last years IN Santa Fe’s Challenge Fellowship project) into SFAI Works (their new social Innovation incubator).
For more information contact nicholas@roots2change.org
Project: Stories of Route 66: The International District
Year: 2014 - 2016
Where: Albuquerque, New Mexico
For More Project Info: id2abq.wixsite.com/idabq
Project Description:
Albuquerque’s International District (ID) is rich in cultural assets. Since 1975, the ID has been home to Albuquerque’s diverse refugee communities, as well as housing NM’s largest “urban Indian” population and a diversity of cultural organizations. The ID also faces many problems associated with urban blight⎯a high crime rate, poverty, and the effects of a large transient population. These issues are exacerbated by lack of community cohesion, limited communication between cultures, and lack of coordination between top-down and bottom-up efforts.
Building upon years of grassroots efforts by community organizers and residents of the district, Stories of Route 66: The International District Project was created to help support residents of Albuquerque’s International District (ID) in collaborative art, creative placemaking, and community development: strengthening community relationships, transforming neighborhood spaces, and empowering civic stewardship.
As a lead partner in the Stories of Route 66: The International District project, R2C staff collected and synthesized place-based historical and contemporary research. This data was collected from archival documents, map analysis, field research, and in-depth interviews. Through this research, a “story of place” narrative was developed to help connect residents to the rich cultural and ecological history of the International District. In addition, this research helped to identify opportunities and strategies for strengthening coordination among existing revitalization efforts in the district, and catalyzing new resident-driven placemaking projects in the area.
The Result:
In the end, this in-depth research process helped guide the City of Albuquerque in making a determination to acquire a two block section of Route 66 for a new public library and community plaza space along Route 66 that will simultaneously serve as a storm water garden, community performance site and gateway to the district’s rich history and contemporary cultural sites.
Project: Convergence
Year: 2010 - 2016
Where: Santa Fe, New Mexico
For More Project Info: http://sfconvergence.org/ for the first version of the project check out this site: convergenceproject.wixsite.com/convergence
Project Description:
The Convergence project began as a student leadership pilot program designed in partnership with local public and private high schools to meet the unique cultural and socio-economic dynamics of Santa Fe. Its aim was to help demonstrate a new paradigm for local public education by focusing on cross-cultural youth leadership development, youth-led community impact, and the development of youth entrepreneurial skills all as an integrated part of the academic curriculum. We achieved this through competency-based education and applied project learning.
The Result:
Community impacts from the program have included: (1) establishment of a 3-year dual-credit program with the Santa Fe Community College culminating in a Community Leadership Certificate; (2) increases in youth resiliency/ GRIT; (3) increases in youth employment, apprenticeships, and community engagement; (4) increases in youth created public events such as art installations and music festivals; (5) training of local public and private school teachers in this new pedagogical approach and (6) full integration of convergence programming into existing school programs.
Project: RE: MIKE
Year: 2012
Where: Santa Fe, New Mexico
For More Project Info: www.remikeable.com
Project Description:
At the heart of Santa Fe, NM lies the St. Michael’s Drive corridor, an aging commercial zone marked by six lanes of traffic virtually inaccessible to pedestrians and bicyclists, vacant storefronts, sprawling parking lots, and an almost complete lack of green space. Despite these conditions, the corridor is widely seen by citywide stakeholders as being singularly ripe with opportunity as it is both the geographic center and the population center of the city.
R2C staff worked with city officials and local nonprofit partners to develop alignment around a community-driven approach to redevelopment. Research on the geological, ecological, and cultural history of the area was conducted and a cross-section of stakeholders were interviewed. By demonstrating that Central Santa Fe has a story that goes back as far as the downtown area, and by identifying those qualities that have made the corridor a unique and recognizable destination within the larger place that is Santa Fe, R2C helped to inspire a different kind of conversation about the future of the area. This work culminated in a weekend-long community pop-up event that offered a broad spectrum of stakeholders an experience of the potential future of the corridor.
The Result:
Feedback from this event was used to build community support and to guide urban planning activities, including the creation of an overlay district that will enable rezoning and district granting.
Project: Learning Valley
Year:2009-2010
Where: Paonia, Colorado
Project Description: In Paonia, Colorado, different cultural values had divided communities into camps, turning local land use, public education, and economic development decisions and governance into arenas of bitter dispute. R2C staff members worked with local community members to understand and appreciate the unique character of their place in a way that catalyzed creative dialogues between diverse stakeholders about what they mutually cared about.
The Result:
Crystallization of a collective vision for the potential their place had to offer as a “Learning Valley”, a vision that inspired numerous creative new partnerships and business ideas—ideas that were creative and cross-collaborative between for-profit and non-profit organizations and helped envision how different small businesses and education programs could operate as a mutually supportive system.