CreatINg Places opens crowdfunding for series of public improvement projects
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Three Indiana communities have launched crowdfunding campaigns to beautify public amenities through the state’s CreatINg Places program.
In 2016, the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority (IHCDA) established the CreatINg Places program to aid crowdfunded placemaking projects in communities across the state. Fundraising is led by local governments or not-for-profits, and each project sets its goal between $5,000 and $50,000. If the goal is reached, the project gets that amount in matching funds from the IHCDA.
Now that program is turning its attention to Gosport, Ladoga and Valparaiso and has opened fundraising requests for projects in community.
In Gosport, city officials are looking to add public restrooms to the Gosport Town Hall which will serve visitors to the government center as well as those to a nearby park. The restrooms will be handicap accessible and able to be accessed from outside the building as well as within.
According to Patroncity, the crowdfunding site the IHCDA has partnered with to handle money raised by local communities for the projects, the Gosport area has raised almost all of its $30,000 goal.
A campaign that opened more recently is in the Montgomery County town of Ladoga, where the community is trying to raise $50,000 to revitalize a 30-year-old playground. A release about the project says the South Montgomery School Corp. has bought the equipment but needs some help to pay for specialized material for the ground in and around the playground.
That project has just under two months to raise the money.
And in Valparaiso, the Valparaiso Creative Council has big plans to convert an empty 3,000-square foot building into an arts center that features administrative space for the creative council, space for rent for artists and other programing. Valparaiso wants to raise $45,000 to remodel the inside of the building and to add bathrooms and other technical upgrades. So far, the project has raised over $13,000.
In August, a not-for-profit in Elkhart sought $50,000 to reimagine lighting in downtown. That project made its goal.