Meet Me Downtown

Why should you attend the Main Street Now Conference in Seattle, March 25-27, 2019? Should you attend even if you aren't a Main Street community? What other educational opportunities does the National Main Street Center offer? 

Well, find out in this episode!

GUEST INFORMATION:

Name: Kelly Humrichouser

Organization: National Main Street Center

Title: Associate Manager of Education

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MainStreetNowConference/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MainStreetsConf

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/natlmainstreet/

SHOW NOTE

Kelly wanted me to be sure to note the following:

The Main Street Now Conference is not possible without the hard work and support of our state-wide partners, including the Washington Main Street Program and Washington Trust for Historic Preservation (Seattle, 2019) and the Missouri Main Street Connection (Kansas City, 2018).

SHOW TRANSCRIPT

Megan Tsui: Hello, everybody. Today my guest is Kelly Humrichouser from the National Main Street Center, and I'm so excited to have Kelly on with me today to talk about National Main Street and the National Main Street Conference that's coming up in March in Seattle. So welcome, Kelly.

Kelly Humrichouser: Thank you. Thanks for having me, Megan. Great to talk to you again.

M: Yeah. I actually met Kelly when I was at a, what was it called - Historic Real Estate Certification Course through the National Development Center. Is that right? Did I get that right?

K: Very, very close. We did the Historic Real Estate Finance Series Certificate Program offered through the National Development Council. And the Main Street America Institute was able to partner with the National Development Council to bring that content to Main Street managers and other historic real estate professionals. And, so yeah, we met in Des Moines and we were just in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago, and now we're here.

M: Yeah, and I, that was probably the hardest class I've taken outside of, outside of, you know, college algebra. But I think it was so helpful and so good. And most people didn't think it was hard. So, it was just me.

K: I thought it was hard too. I was very grateful that I was able to participate in the course and kind of be the coordinator for bringing that content through the institute to the group of people that we had with us. So it was like really wonderful because it’s really hands-on and you do have to do a lot of math. But at the end of the day, you're able to just understand so much more of the conversation around development in all these communities.

M: Well that's what I was, that's why I went and why I decided that that was going to be an important thing and my, why my board said yes to the travel costs and things like that. But what was great is I got some scholarship money from, you want to talk about the scholarship opportunity? And then also the there was some travel cost reimbursement because we're a smaller Main Street. So just mention that quick because I want to make sure people know about that great resource.

K: Yeah. We were able, through the support that we had from the 1772 foundation, to subsidize highly, highly, the cost of this course so that Main Street managers are able to participate. We know that two weeks during any year out of the office to do an in-person training that also has a cost admin training process associated, it's a lot, it's a lot for anybody to handle. So we highly highly subsidized the course through that partnership. And we were also able to provide a few travel scholarships to make it a lot easier for people to be in an AirBnB or a hotel for a week while they're kind of going out to these different communities. So, we do hope to be able to do that again in the future. Always kind of an interest from our network in that possibility.

But just, you know, everyone that was involved. We're so grateful to the support of the 1772 Foundation and our partners at the National Development Council. That's something that, you know, we want to continue to work with them because they have such great knowledge on how economic development and real estate deals really work.

M: Well and I, you know, as a small, you know Main Street organization, we wouldn't have been able to do it without those, that help. And so we really appreciate the National Main Street and the foundation, and the National Development Center, we’re able to collaborate and bring that all together and make it affordable so thanks for your efforts on that and everyone else's. And I think, would people be able to learn about those opportunities if they get on your mailing list? Because I believe that's where I saw it.

K: Yeah absolutely. In fact, you know, specific to the educational opportunities, I would encourage anybody who's interested in future opportunities like that to email msai@savingplaces.org. I'm sure we'll put that in the details but msai@savingplaces.org is for the institute specifically and that will get you kind of on my list to tell you specifically about opportunities like this that you might be interested in. Generally, we encourage everybody to always pay attention to everything that you're receiving. If you're a Main Street Member or you're just interested in keeping up to date with our with our weekly news. There are so many opportunities that come through our regular mailing list as well.

M: All right, we'll make sure to put that in the show note so people have a link to get to that easily. OK. So, that's how we met, that's how we got to know each other a little bit. We sat at the same table. We laughed a lot and I thought it would be so great for you to come on the podcast and talk about what National Main Street is and then what is the big conference that's coming up and why someone who is a Main Street Community, inside of Main Street Community, would want to attend. And then why somebody who isn't part of the Main Street Program yet might want to attend. So, let's get started. What, what is National Main Street?

K: Yeah. The National Main Street Center, and some folks probably know it as Main Street America, are really kind of one and the same. So either way that you're using those terms, we're a national organization that supports commercial district revitalization across the country. Most people call the Main Streets in some other places, they might be neighborhoods, commercial districts, and larger urban areas. We're really focused on both. And we provide, you know, education training and networking opportunities. Our conference and the advocacy technical assistance, really, we tried to do a little bit of everything and hopefully, we do it successfully.

So we've been around for about 40 years it was a program started by the National Trust for Historic Preservation in the late 70s, early 80s, to try to bring back life to places that were kind of disinvested. You know, when you started building more, new construction out towards highways and maybe downtowns, weren't seeing as much, as much of the action. And so, in the shopping mall era, a lot of, a lot of downtowns weren't thriving, and so this effort was started by the National Trust really for the preservation of buildings but also the community. And then it's grown into more of an economic development format. And so, it's a very interdisciplinary way to look at bringing life to downtowns, but it works and it works really well. So now we are an independent non-profit. Well we're still very closely partnered with the National Trust for Historic Preservation. But we try to bring tools to folks like yourself out in Red Wing and in communities across the country.

M: Well, I think it's just about the coolest thing because, as you said, it does, it's comprehensive, and what a lot of people don't always see about their downtown is how it's such a mix of both residential, commercial, community, nonprofits, churches. There's just so many different things that happen in a lot of our downtowns and so to have a organization like the National Main Street Center understand that and then help us create a foundation and create a way for us to, you know, wear more boots on the ground, support that, is just, it's phenomenal. And I'm glad the organization is here and that it continues to get funded, and I hope it continues to because it's, it's economic development at the very heart of our communities. So, I love it. Okay, and what is your role there Kelly?

K: Well, my role as, my title is Associate Manager of Education. And what that means for me on a day to day is that I manage programming for our Main Street America Institute. That's the program that we were talking about previously that was a partnership with the National Development Council but through the Main Street America Institute. The Institute is really a credentialing program for folks that are working in commercial district revitalization as Main Street directors or managers to hone their skills, to learn new skills, to kind of have a checkpoint for their competency as a Main Street Manager. And we offer a credential called the Main Street America Revitalization Professional Credential. That's kind of the pinnacle of achievement in our world right now, I believe. And it's a program that has been built upon a previous program that was offered through the Main Street Center called the Certified Main Street Manager Program. That program, you know, existed for about 20 years and kind of went through a hiatus period and now we've brought it back kind of as the Main Street America Institute.

So we do online courses and workshops and in addition to that I also work on education through our conference, which I know we will talk much more about, but there are over 100 education sessions and special events, kind of other jazz. And then as with any nonprofit, you know, everybody has their other duties as assigned. So I hope I try to make myself helpful in other ways. But, you know, our team is varied and kind of constantly in kind of dynamic shifts and always everybody's kind of helping each other out. So just as with any, I'm sure, Main Street program our team is constantly doing a million things.

M: Yeah. And yeah sometimes it's slow, sometimes it's crazy and you have to be ready to do it, step in. I think that's just the nature of the Main Street, I don't know, it's almost like you're the pathos of Main Street.

K: Right.

M: Jump in wherever you need to.

K: Right, right, right.

M: What's your background? How did you get started in this area of work?

K: It's, you know, it's one of those circuitous paths, I think. My first job I think, I had a couple of jobs when I was like 16, and one was at a candy and gift shop on a Main Street in my town and the other was a soda fountain, like a historic soda fountain. I was like a soda jerk.

M: Woah, you were like original, OG Main Street stuff right there.

K: Right. Right. The soda fountain, I mean I loved the place. It closed, I think, in 2002 after 96 years in business. But it was really interesting back then to kind of see the little system that the downtown business owners and how everyone worked together and how they were working with the city when the city was trying to build a new development behind the Main Street and kind of understand all those dynamics. And at that time I heard about the Main Street program, but it kind of, I think, went over my head, like, I was like, “Oh, what? People do this as a, as a job.”

That’s crazy, but, you know, I went to undergrad and took a course that was focused on historic preservation when I was a senior. I kind of got a job eventually after college. Got into a historic preservation program. And through that, and kind of very dynamic different circumstances, I was like, “Oh yeah, Main Street Center makes a whole lot of sense for me.” I had a background in some educational programming, so it really kind of came together. But yeah, it's something you, I don't know if anybody, really aims for that or if it's just kind of something that happens you know.

M: Right, yeah, I don't know a lot of like, 16-year-olds are, like, “I can't wait to work on Main Street.”

K: Right. Right. But maybe they should, right?

M: We should change that. So you have a huge conference coming up here in March that I'm really excited for, for many reasons. Tell us about that. What's coming up?

K: Yes. So every year we have the Main Street Now Conference. This is annually the largest national gathering of downtown revitalization professionals, Main Street managers. We've had, I think, last year we had more than sixteen hundred attendees. So we're actually expecting a bigger turnout this year. The conference is March 25th to 27th in Seattle, Washington. And Seattle is just such a cool destination. I can imagine that, you know, a real drop for some people, just being able to come out to the Pacific Northwest if you, if you haven't been before. But, you know, relative to the content, you know, like I said previously, we've got over 100 education sessions and some really cool special events planned. And you can still register, so you can register up until the day of the event if you, if you want to come out. But I would say for anybody who's listening, look at it fast because hotels are going quick and, you know, you want to make sure you get in there and plan your experience a little bit.

M: Yeah, I can't wait. I mean the last year was my first conference. It was in Kansas City. And I had such an amazing time that it was just so great to be around other people like me. I mean other people who are, most people are outgoing. They're community-minded, and that doesn't just mean their community, it means the community of Main Street. And they're fun and curious and it just, it was such a great experience to be around all these people who love their Main Streets and love their downtowns just like I do. So, I can't say enough about that conference and how great it was. All the sessions I went to were very well done. The facility was amazing. It was just top notch. So, I love it. I am doing a couple of sessions there too. So I'm excited to, connect with some people in that way as well.

So, what is the one session you think that is, you're most excited for people to take advantage of. I mean, besides mine! But what are the other ones? I have one in mind that I can't wait to go to, but I want to hear what yours is. Do you have one?

K: You tell me about yours first so that we don't pick the same one, and it feels unethical for me to pick one.

M: OK, fine I'll tell you. The one that I think I'm pretty excited for is the one about how to have dogs downtown.

K: Oh that's so great! I've been communicating with Britin, who is the speaker there. She's got some excellent resources to bring and it is an issue that we, you know, we were like very excited when someone submitted on the topic because it is something that so many downtown programs need to deal with. I know, you know, my mom wants to bring her dog everywhere.

M: Yeah, exactly.

K: I'm like, how do we do this best?

M: If you live in California, everybody does bring their dogs everywhere. They're in the grocery stores, they're in, they're not service dogs, they're just dogs. And so and I think it can be a competitive advantage for our community. I know there's, there's a community not far from here that's very small. And I mean I think they may have a couple hundred people. They still have a few historic buildings from their downtown and they just come alive in the summer and then they have you know the Dog Days of Stockholm, where they have a weekend where thousands and thousands of people come out with their dogs to this little town and just take over. And I just think it's brilliant. It's just such a great marketing strategy. So that's why I'm excited to hear about it.

K: Yeah. That's a good pick. Like I say I feel a little bit, you know I don't want to steer too many, too many people in one direction or the other based on what I would think. I'm pretty excited for some of our kind of general sessions, so go ahead and plug those. We have Jim and Deb Fallows. They're authors of a book called Art Sounds.

M: I didn't know that.

K: Yeah, they're going to come on Tuesday morning for a general session discussion with our president and CEO Patrice Frye. So, we're very excited about that. They've been wonderful partners so far and so we're going to have their book and have a book signing as well, so we're excited about several of our general sessions. But I also want to say specifically, I'm excited this year. We have a focus on, leadership and partnerships. And so we've given a significant discount to civic leaders. We're talking elected officials and people in upper-level management positions of municipalities to attend the conference for an extremely reduced rate. And this is something, you know, we're gearing educational programming specifically for them. There's a luncheon hosted by our Board Chair, Ed McMahon, specifically for the civic leaders at the conference to learn how they can better support a Main Street program. And for them to really feel the value of the Main Street program in their communities. And that's really huge for us because we know that those partnerships are so important. And for some communities to have, kind of be the strength that they need at the table with their city team, it'd be really great if we could tell them a little bit more about all the possibilities that Main Street could bring. So we're really jazzed about that.

M: That is so exciting because if you don't have, in my experience anyway, and even in the experience that I've seen in other towns in Minnesota if you don't have your city leaders on board, it's such an uphill battle. And so if you can get them to these sessions, get them to hear about the great work that Main Street does and encourage them to help support a membership to National Main Street and/or their state Main Street, what a huge effort that goes towards making it happen in the community. So thank you to the National Main Street Center for offering that discount because I think that is a game changer for a lot of, especially smaller communities. So thank you for that.

K: Yeah we hope so. You know it's something that we hope it, it's a relationship that you could bring to the conference and then continue to grow from there so that it's not you know a one-stop event but really begins the discussion.

M: Right. And I'm, you know, what I love about the conferences, it's things that are very practical. Those are the things that I'm talking about. I'm doing a session on hosting a retail challenge. How to fill vacant storefronts in your downtown. And then the other one is how to tell your downtown story with social media. So you'll come away with real actionable things that Main Street has actually done. It's not theoretical, it's very action oriented. And a lot of the sessions are like that, you know, my hand hurt last year from taking notes to really dive into all of the different presentations and ideas. But then you also learn about things like the topic of this, you know, what we just talked about, was, the leadership and the partnerships and building those kinds of things that kind of make having a main street and being a main street manager easier when you have those partnerships and collaborations. Those don't always, you can't, that is not a one size fits all. That's a lot of times, you know, there are personalities involved, there's different budgeting processes that are involved, etc. But you get to hear about how other people have done it and get inspired. So I think that's what I love about the conference the most, is, it's both higher level and then also nuts and bolts right down on the ground of what you can take back to your main street tomorrow and get working on.

K: With that in mind I'm gonna plug one session that I think is a really, a great idea that has been proposed just for this conference and our state coordinator in Virginia, Rebecca Rowe, and Diana Schwartz, who is the Executive Director of the River District Association in Danville Virginia, are doing a session and we've scheduled it for kind of in the afternoon. But after the conference, how to make it happen. So the concept there is to bring together what you're learning because there are so many ideas. You're gonna have so many notes. And we do need to check in sometimes and really think like, how do you take this home and implement it. So if any session that I would individually plug, I'll give it to that one.

M: That's a good one because it encompasses everything. It's very safe. Good job.

K: Thank you.

M: So if you are, I think it's pretty clear, we made pretty clear why if you're a Main Street Community, why you should attend. I think that's not necessarily hard to imagine the reasons why, but what if you aren't yet? What if you're Joe Blow or Jane Doe working in a community, working on downtown and stuff along your main street but you're not a member, why should you attend this?

K: Yeah, that's such a great question. And I love it because, you know, so often we find that there's a perception out in the world that if you're not from a recognized, certified Main Street America community then this isn't for you somehow. And it actually, it is. We have folks from so many different fields: planners, architects, developers, government staff, as we were talking about before, and volunteers, board members, interested community members, always, I think, take away a lot from the conference as well.  It's always interdisciplinary content. It's issues that are not just for somebody who necessarily is managing the downtown. You could be a small business owner in the downtown and take a lot away from that session on pets on Main Street as well, you know. We also do offer credit for the American Institute of Certified Planners and the American Institute of Architects continuing education, so professionals from those fields, we are we are trying to make it easier for them to attend because it can be kind of a checking off a box or they need to have in their career path on their on this list. So we are doing that type of outreach, but this is a conference that's just about so much. It's about how communities work, and so if you're in a community and trying to make it work, which applies to just a myriad of types of people, then this is for you, you know. And then, as we talked about before, we have an emphasis on partnerships and we want to make sure that all of the partners at the table as well. So, you know, of course, that includes the elected officials and civic leaders that we were talking about, but it could include any type of partnership. I would also encourage a Main Street manager, think of the conference as something that you can also reach out to other folks in your town and encourage them to come with you, especially if there's some topic that you're trying to tackle together. This might be a great place to kind of get some ideas for it.

M: That’s what I noticed last year is that there were some kind of groups from one community, and a lot of times it was the mayor, it was Member 2 from the Council, the main street manager, maybe the chamber director or, you know, so that just makes so much sense to come together. You get to go to different sessions or the same sessions if it's around something that you're out working towards and then come together and talk about what you learned. And so, it's just such a great way to learn and to expand and to be inspired. I will say what you bring up about planners, developers, architects. That is kind of a group that I don't assume, you know, would go to something like this, but yet they are the ones with the money. I mean, they're the ones with the connections to the developers and to investors and to the banks in their community, who've worked on projects, especially in historic preservation or with historic tax credits or whatever. And they're the ones that are visionaries, and so that's been a pleasant surprise for me. I mean, the other group I kind of assumed would go that makes sense but this other group of, those other kinds of professionals, it's been such a pleasant surprise for me to meet them and learn more about how they're working inside Mean Streets. And I just can't say enough about how wonderful it is to have that opportunity at the National Main Street conference to connect to one another and to figure out where those resources lie. So that's another benefit I think that may not be as obvious.

K: Yeah, Absolutely.

M: Yeah. So if you were going to give a piece of advice to a Main Street manager or someone who's working hard in their downtown to revitalize it, what advice would you give them?

K: Well, I think from my perspective and the perspective of our team at the National Main Street Center, it's to really make sure that, you know, if you are a Main Street member that you are taking full advantage of your membership. There are so many ways to do so. Through a Main Street America membership, you have access to webinars, resources, a really great discount to the Main Street America Institute program for some professional development. We have so many guides and so many kinds of hard copy resources and they're really interactive at this point. You know, we're always interested in hearing back from folks and updating our resources to make them applicable in various situations. And then just in the past year, we've also launched something called The Point, which is a member network based through our membership system. It really allows for interaction, and people hold really great dialogue there. And there's no, there's no greater resource than your peers. So I think that's what I would say to anybody who is currently a member is to really make sure that you are getting everything that you can out of your membership.

And very self-serving, think about the Main Street America Institute. We have some really great courses and we're always developing more. There's great opportunities there. But if you're not a Main Street member, if you're looking at this again from that perspective of, I'm not, you know, part of this kind of accredited network, you know, how can I participate? We have a general membership. You don't have to be part of your statewide program in order to join us as a community. And we also have a new membership format that’s called Friends of Main Street. If you are out there and you're just kind of interested, you want to know more about it. Friends on Main Street is kind of a low-cost entry-level way just to make sure you're receiving our conference discounts and, you know, weekly updates from the National Main Street Center so that you are aware of opportunities of, you know, resources and it's not a huge commitment up front.

So we're always happy to talk more about, more about membership. I know my colleagues who specifically work on membership will be like, "Yay! Questions!" But I really think, you know, the conferences is a huge part of this network every year so, the advice is also, attend the conference, make sure that your hand is cramping from all those notes and go home and make some changes. You know, we always talk about the main aspect of this work is really, you know, trying to find other great examples, from podcasts too, to duplicate and obviously have to consider the context of your own community when you're doing so. But this is all about trial and error sometimes with really great examples from other communities. And a lot of that can be found at the conference. And then, you know, there are those best practices that we want to get out there and we do that through all of our member resources, but again, really specifically the conference.

M: Well, I think that you just wrapped it up very, very nicely and put a bow on it because I think that's exactly, you know, I think it's such a wonderful conference and I will hope to meet as many people as possible there this year. Last year I had a terrible cold. So I was I was just going through, but I can't wait this year to get there and get to the, I know there's some parties and some networking opportunities that I am looking forward to as well. So, and I'm assuming that you're all there and ready to answer any and all questions at the conference.

K: Oh, yes. So as an attendee at the conference, you can always find information at our booth in the exhibit hall or through the registration table if you ever have questions. We want to make it accessible to you as possible. I will say it's really highly recommended to make sure that you download the mobile app, it's available through our website, in advance of attending, so that you're all set to go once you arrive. We'd love it if you took a look at the schedule in advance and kind of planned out where you thought you might want to be so that you have a better sense of, you know, what sessions you want to attend, and you are not scrambling then. And make sure to read through kind of some of the session descriptions and just plan your experience a little bit. I'll also say, Seattle has great public transit. Don't feel like you have to take a cab from the airport. The train is great.

M: That is a good hint because I think it's it's a busy downtown from what I understand, and the conference is located in a great spot, so hopefully people will have lots of ease getting around. I can't wait to see Seattle. Never been there. It's definitely been a place on my bucket list. And so I just can't wait. I'm ready for it to get here, plus it's, you know, very, very chilly here in Minnesota and in Chicago where Kelly is, and so I am just trying to think happy, warmer thoughts and anywhere else in the country than here at the moment.

M: Well, thanks so much Kelly. I really appreciate you coming on and talking about National Main Street, the conference, and all of the great resources that are available to folks who care about their downtowns. And I appreciate that you said, you know, it's really all about a big borrowing and stealing from each other. And one of the things I love about Main Street that I have not found in other areas that I've worked in is that no one hoards information or good ideas. It's almost like, we can't wait to share what's worked in our downtown. There just is not a sense of competition at the Main Streets that I've ever encountered. So, you know, instead of trying to recreate the wheel or, you know, try to think of ideas that are outside the box on your own and get started and learn the hard way, you can learn from other people and what they've, been through. And you mentioned The Point, which is part of the National Main Street Center's website. I love that I just kind of, you know, got really dug into it just a few weeks ago, and I thought, “Oh, my gosh! Where has this been for the last couple of years.” It's people who have sample documents and sample marketing pieces and good ideas about contacts and all sorts of things that, in that, I'm sure I'm not doing it justice. But that's a great resource. What I will do is in the show notes make sure to put links to everything we talked about, so links to how to register for the conference, links to your email if people want more information about the institute and what they can sign up for in there, or other information they might need and make sure that people know how to get connected to you.

K: Excellent. Well, I look forward to speaking to people and seeing everyone at the conference. I apologize in advance if you see me and I'm in running shoes and scrambling by, but feel free to say hello.

M: Awesome! I mean, I did not know there were sixteen hundred people last year. And that's a pretty good testament to a well-run conference because sixteen hundred people could feel like a massive amount of chaos, and it did not feel that way, Kelly. It was amazing. So you did a great job and your team is stellar at this, they are obviously pros. So I can't wait for this year to have even more folks be able to come and share all the great stuff about Main Street. So, thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it. And we'll see you in Seattle.

K: Excellent. Thank you, Megan.

M: All right. Thanks, Kelly.

Guest Information:   Name: Bridgette Kelch, Main Street Director Organization: Downtown Washington, Inc. Website: https://www.downtownwashmo.org/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/downtownwashmo Twitter: https://twitter.com/downtownwashmo Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/downtownwashmo/   Visit the Meet Me Downtown Podcast Website: https://www.meetmedowntownpodcast.com/

Show Transcript: 

M=Megan Tsui

B=Bridgette Kelch

M: Hello, in this episode I talk to Bridgette Kelch from Washington, Missouri. She’s been their Main Street Director for over 18 years and they’ve done some pretty amazing things in that time. I recorded our pre-interview and it was so great that I just converted it into a real episode so we jump right in where I’m learning more about Bridgette and her downtown.

M: But yeah, such a fun job, and you’ve been in it a long time.

B: Yeah, sometimes I wonder, too long? But no. But I started right out of college so I’ll be 41 this month, but I’ve been here since I was 22.

M: Wow, you are dedicated.

B: Well, you know, I didn’t expect to be here but my passion is historic preservation so that’s what my degree is in. And I really thought I was going to work in a museum and now I kind of just view downtown as a big giant outdoor museum.

M: It kind of is, I mean in a lot of towns it actually could be.

B: Yeah and so then I liked it and I stayed and yeah we’ve grown a ton in that time frame. So starting out of, this year is 30 years for the organization, that we’ve been doing Main Street. We were a pilot program for Missouri in 1989. So I kind of always joke that they got through the really hard years you know, where you’re like struggling to find out who you are, what you’re going to do. And it was so hard when I started, I mean we were still playing the game of someone needs to pay their pledge so we can make payroll and those kinds of games. But yeah we’re past those points now, hopefully, so it’s exciting. We’ve been able to take on some pretty big projects. I think that’s one of the things that I’m most proud of, you know, we couldn’t find somebody to do what we wanted we did it ourselves.

M: Right. I’m very intrigued by the idea that you guys own and operate the post office and a B&B.

B: It was never planned, you know.

M: It never is.

B: Yeah it just came along, so I would say the majority of our growth has come since 2006. I started in 01, which is funny because that’s like right before the recession you know and we didn't feel that as much. I mean we certainly did feel it. But I don't think it's such big, you know such large swings in the Midwest. I think just by nature we're a more conservative bunch and so we don't feel those giant swings as much. And I could be wrong but that's how I view it. So 2006 you know we didn't really have a state program before that. And I mean there was one, I think I met the other managers or executive directors like once or twice and I really met a dynamic one and her name was Gayla Roten from Branson, Missouri and she kind of took me under her wing.

And then as the years rolled by, you know in 05, and we decided to start our own state program because we needed it. And so our statewide program, coordinating program, was started by the executive directors that were left standing. The state booted the program basically and so now you know she's our state director. She was just a local director and now she's our state director. I think we're in our 11th, no 12th year, yeah 12th year. And so I still serve on that state board and so I think you know getting involved at that level and then really just the folks that were doing Main Street in Missouri at that time, they were really following the rules and so that was the culture that I was kind of brought up in. And so we really embraced the four points and in 2006 was a big change for us was that we finally were reviewed for accreditation again and they had a National Main Street Center person on site and we thought we were doing great and we didn't get accredited that year.

M: Oh no.

B: And if for very good reasons. Of course, at the time I was really mad and upset and Gayla and I both cried over it but I think it was really kind of that spark that we needed to say, "OK let's look at ourselves. You know we've got to fix this." And then we really just started to fly and one of the biggest things was our board president at the time, he just took a huge stance and said, "Training, we have to go and attend training. And it can't just be the executive director going to these trainings and trying to come back and share it with us. We need a new initiative ourselves and go attend training." And so that was something that we put into a board contract, Kathy La Plante helped us with that. And we move forward and then around that time there was a building that had been owned by the city, that was owned by the chamber, and that was back in the city’s hands. And the Mayor is like, “we need to tear that down, so there’s more parking for the Catholic church.” You know small towns.

M: Oh, that sounds so familiar. That’s like right here, right now.

B: And so I don’t know how it happened, but it was after, I think it was around the time that the National Main Street, I still call it the National Town Meeting, whatever they call it now; the conference, was in Cincinnati and so they have it, we're a very German cultured area and one of my designs here had been on that, had gone to that national meeting and he just loved all their farmers markets and their over the Rhine area. And so he's like, "you know we could do something with that building." So he literally that day, you hear this but it's true, we sketched it on a napkin, because he's set up the napkin and it's framed and he went to the chamber and he said to the chamber exec and he's like, "What do you think?" Because our farmer's market wasn't downtown at that time, it was actually out in our fairgrounds, and so he convinced the chamber exec. The chamber exec didn't ever understand why all this didn't work well together. He's like, "I don't understand why you know we all don't work together."

I'm like I don't know. I just know for some reason that it's Rob with us and the city and I you know, I came in you know being born and raised here but not understanding the politics. So I think that was best of all old wounds you know. And so he really made a concerted effort he said, "you know if all three of us work on things together we're pretty unstoppable." And I was young and that and I was like, "yeah sure you know bring me along for the ride."And so long story short somehow though my design chair and the Chamber exec convinced the mayor this was a good idea, that it was a joint project so we all were like well. So the city owned the property, it's our second oldest building on Main Street. And we did it together we turned it into a farmer's market and a civic Pavilion. So you have this 1856 building that was in atrocious shape. We did you know, we did put a pavilion around it so that wasn't staying exactly true to it, but it was a compromise you know for it to live long a longer life. And so it became our weekend farmer's market meets there and all the special events are out of there and now people get married and do all kinds of fun things under that. It's really an anchor on one side of our downtown.

And so the city put in 250 in kind and work and 250 in cash and the Chamber put in like 220 in cash, which is basically almost their whole savings. And we had no money, like nothing. So we wrote a grant to our, it's called Neighborhood Assistance Program it's something I think is specific to Missouri, but we were able to get approved and then we sold, basically sold tax credits and that's how we got our $250,000. And so as you know within kind of work it was definitely a million dollar project. And I say that and it's still not lost on me that that is a huge project. If you would have told me before that I would have said no we're too little, no we can't do that. And we did it, at the end of the day no one wanted to own the property and so we were like we'll own it. So we own the property and we lease the first level back to the city so they maintain the public restrooms and the event space when someone rents it. And then there's a second and third floor and we kind of just mothball that and I'll go faster if I talk too long.

There's kind of five projects that I'll roll out of it. So we mothball that second and third floor even though we know it's time. We're always saying redevelop your second and third floor for residential and we're like we're sitting on ours for the time being. At that time, our office is located in the oldest unique structure in the area, which is an 1834 log cabin and that's where our office had been since the mid 90s. Kind of you know, fun things in the Main Street world, that you know when the toilet water froze we got a day off. So a great building. So we're kind of rolling along and a few years later we kind of start here rumblings from the postal service that you know, we have a long history with the Postal Service. They initially tried in the 90s to close our downtown location and so saying it wasn't big enough for all the mail sorting and everything and so the town actually had banded together in the mid 90s and secured the property on either side and said This property is available we'll even help you buy it if you just stay downtown. And the Postal Service was like oh I guess these people are serious. Well we'll leave you have this one open but we're going to go ahead and open one on the highway. So a town of less than 15,000 and we had two post offices.

So we kind of knew that you know the writing was going to eventually be on the wall that we would have to do something and that was about you know 2008 is when we started hearing those rumblings. And the new postmaster came in, he's directed to close the downtown location and sell it. And then just consolidate operations out on the highway. So he let us know, and so we said OK what if we buy the building and then you can just rent from us and we'll do stuff with the other parts of the building and they're like no. And we're like OK well if you stay for free and we'll renovate the building, you stay for free and then we'll do stuff with the other part of the building, we'll take care of all the maintenance and everything. There's 700 P.O. boxes here and while they're not all always rented at the same time, that was a lot of foot traffic and this would be the first piece of government that would have left the downtown district. City hall is still here, Police, DMV you know all that is still downtown. And we just really thought we don't want to let this post office go because then it would make it easier to say oh we're going to move the police station out here and City Hall.

And as we've seen happen you know hundreds of times. And so we really kind of drew a line in the sand and they said, "Well we're not going to stay in this building in any shape or form. So why don't you buy the building, you renovate it and you run the downtown post office" and of course we had no idea that was even possible but it's called a contract Postal Unit. Some of them these days are called Village Post Offices VPO or CPU. So like how it works is that you know we are just like a regular post office. We sell the stamps for the same price. We ship packages just like they do. We don't do some of the ancillary services like bulk mail but we get a percentage. So the Post Office pays us nothing except the percentage of postage stamps that we sell and packages that we ship. So we get 10 percent. We always looked at it, we just wanted it to break even and if it made money that would be exciting.

M: So I’m assuming you have to staff this?

B: Yeah absolutely. Yeah. So yes. So we renovated the building again with this Neighborhood Assistance Program and then just a myriad of fun and nutty different fundraisers. They don't normally allow P.O. boxes to stay. And it was because a clerk, there are seven unions in the postal service believe it or not. And you would be taking a union job by that.

So because it's not normal to have P.O. boxes but that was our putting our foot down, if you take the P.O. boxes out of this location we will not, we won't do this. And they really wanted a CPU here, an additional unit. So we have been running, we renovated the building and we opened March 1st of 2011. So we've been running a post office for the last eight years and it's been going well. It definitely pays for itself. Our office has moved into the post office. So that left that little cabin vacant and so we kind of mothballed it for a while saying we'll figure out what to do with it eventually. And we're in this new beautiful building and our events coordinator, I'd already thought about this but there's always these things that push you over the edge to make you go, she had a terrible apartment and she's like "God I wish you know, I want to live downtown but it's either like so expensive I can't afford it or it's holy smokes it's scary and yucky." And so that's kind of where our residential was like opulently renovated or Holy crap I think that cockroach is as big as my cat. So we didn't have any middle ground and we were exhausted but somehow I convinced the board that we should go ahead and renovate that second and third floor back at the farmer's market. And I told them, because they were like oh we don't want to be landlords and had to collect rent and I was like well what else are you going to do. Here we are preaching to all these building owners that they need to be doing something on their second and third floor, and what are we doing. We're sitting here. Oh that's true you know. So I said, well I already have the apartments I think mostly rented and they're like really you do? And I'm like well Amy our event coordinator and they're like oh that's nice she won't do anything bad.

And then I said and one of my friends who's a police officer. And I was like well I better make good on that so I took off. I did take my friend through and it was like dead pigeons up there and you know just totally a mess on the upper floors. And I was like you could imagine living here, couldn't you? He's like Oh yeah totally. I mean he was kind of being sarcastic but he did move in, him and Amy each an apartment. So we renovated that, they were physically and mentally exhausted. I had an amazing board at the time and throwing water heaters out a second-floor window and you know repairing plaster and refinishing floors.

M: How did you finance that part?

B: That one we did it old school loan, we went to the bank.

M: Because you had equity in the building.

B: So at this point we had a loan on the farm on the post office. We took out a second loan. So what we did is we actually paid full price for everything, except for the demolition work, because we said we want this to be a true case so that we can go to other property owners and say, "OK we had a second and third floor. It was a hot mess; dead pigeons, falling plaster this is what it looked like, this is what we paid. Here's the return on the investment, it's there and it's a mid-range apartment. It's not crazy opulent and it's not scary gross. It's right in the middle. And here we have you know a young professional and a police officer living there and went over so well, huge. And then you know like a year later - a couple of, no it's been more than a year, we kind of had to take a breath after that because like I said we were physically mentally and moneywise exhausted.

And so just kind of truck in, keep on doing your four-point approach and all the events that we do and all this craziness. And it's like hey we still have a building, a really cool building that's sitting vacant. Our cabin. And so we start to talk about, you know in the beginning of 2013 we had no, really no B&B's. There were like two left. We have a park and we have two hotels out on the highway like a Best Western and a Super 8 and we recently got our little downtown boutique hotel opened. But as far as for someone that wanted to stay in a unique kind of a B&B setting, we just didn't have a lot. So our tourism director was like you guys should do like lodging in there and we're like what. So I was like OK this kind of sounds cool. No kidding we totally funded that whole project. We furnished the cabin off of Facebook.

M: Wow

B: We put a call out and said hey we think we're gonna do this, what do you think? Anybody got a bed? And so a local furniture company donated a king bed and mattresses to us. And the reason we got it is their roof had leaked and there was like one brown spot on the corner of the mattress you know. And so here we have it, and then it just kind of all came and we ended up getting like hutches that were from like founders of the community. It's crazy. So we have been running the bed and breakfast in there since the latter half of 2013.

And you know we caught bed tax just like our other lodging and resubmitted to the city for our you know bed, tax and tourism and yeah we're just, we're nuts.

M: And that’s staffed I assume.

B: Yes, when I started they were stretching the executive. When I started in 01 there was a full time executive director and a part-time bookkeeper admin. And then the chamber kind of poached him and said Okay well you can do both. So he was part time at downtown, part time at the Chamber which freed up some funds for them to hire me. And I come in as this Project Coordinator full time. So I guess we had one full time and two part-time and then over the years we have morphed and we're short one worker right now. But if we were full force we'd have four full time one part-time.

M: And what happens if someone doesn't show up for work, calls in sick. Who goes and covers at the post office, who goes and makes the beds and does the laundry?

B: So we have a cleaning lady that takes care of the cabin so that which we had to. Does the laundry and everything, but we all actually, I mean I know how to do everything over there so. And there has been a case you know when the cleaning lady is on vacation and I go over and I clean it and put it back together and get it ready for the person. Everybody in the office is cross-trained, so all of us can run the post office window. There is one likely, Anna works there full time, that's her thing. You know she's 40 hours up there but you know there is some downtime so she does Main Street stuff too as far as you know mailings, but that's her main goal. But yeah so we have a new event coordinator, Cassidy, and she's been here with us since April but she had to learn how to work at the post office. That's the hardest part. It's not like it's rocket science but it's just a lot to remember.

M: A lot of details I would think and you can’t screw up.

B: I will say at the end of the day the last line of defense if no one else is here, Bridgette has to come in. I mean and I will and I do it. And we're open, the post office is open on Saturdays from 8 to noon.

M: Everybody kind of take a Saturday and rotate it a little bit?

B: No, we have someone, one of our part-time people. We said that Saturdays was a definite like that’s what you need to be here. So it's not perfect and things don't always go right but it's just how we morphed and how we are today.

M: That's so fascinating and I think that you know Red Wings Downtown Main Street has been around since 1996 I believe and it was just a downtown Corporation of you know businesses that would meet and they didn't have a clear structure and they, of course, weren't a part of the Main Street program because that didn't come in until about 2010-2012. So and we were one of the first communities in the Main Street program. So we've been around a long time. And one of the things I've been feeling is that it's time for some transformational projects, it's time to think bigger and think bolder. And of course with that comes risk and comes more investments and more creative solutions on those kinds of things and so it's really fun to hear where you are now and what your organization has decided to focus on.

B: And there definitely were some risks.

M: Absolutely.

B: I mean we sort of had to stick our necks out and we could have failed. I mean we definitely could've failed. We've had some sort of a merchant's organization, they officially incorporated in 1973. And they mostly just did promotions. So you know I mean even before that they met, there was a merchants group that met but it was funny they incorporated in 1973 and they called themselves the Downtown Washington Shopping Center. Coincidentally the year before our first shopping center opened out on our main highways.

So yeah I mean we never were a slipcovered shuttered downtown and we've always been able to you know remain. I mean there were definitely some desolate days and when the tumbleweeds are rolling, we're rolling down the streets. So we didn't have a lot of, I mean we definitely had buildings that are mucked up, but not as you know, I'm always like I'll never get that big reveal where they pull off the cover and voila there's this gorgeous structure. And one of my friends who has a lot of those in her town in, Chillicothe Missouri and she's like oh shut up.

M: Yeah you don't necessarily want those. You know that's such a different hard problem you know and we all have. And I think Red Wing you know the same thing. I mean we have a couple of buildings that are bank owned, that are for sale, that are priced you know in my opinion way too high for the value that you get for those. And so, but they're not in, you know they're not boarded up, they're not vandalized they just are empty. So you know but then we have really some core businesses that have been around a long long time and of course there's the session planning issues with those as we go forward. But we've been lucky to not have a lot of the challenges that other towns have. Are you as a county seat?

B: No, we're not. We are the largest town in the county but we are not the county seat, the town next to us is.

M: OK we're a county seat and I think that that might have a little bit to do with the stability that we've had for our downtown. But it's just fascinating and I think there's so much to learn about thinking bigger. And do you think that it was, was it a board, was it at the board level that they were open to thinking bigger. Did you have to drag them along or were they willing participants?

B: I think we, actually what's funny because we've had to tell the story so many times now. And then when we all sat around, Donovan Rypkema, was in not too long ago last year or so and he wanted to know how things happened and he talked to us individually. He's like, "whenever the main street directors are in the room they can't shut up."And it's true though he interviewed them and interviewed everybody kind of separately and it was funny because the story that they told, because me if I'm excited about something then I cannot, you never wonder what I'm thinking because it's all over my face, which can be good and bad. So I go in like I could, I vividly remember the post office because I wanted to do it and I thought how am I going to convince them to do this. You know I think they're going to be scared I'll get out.And so I went in there and I was literally I was so excited I was bouncing in my seat you know to tell them this is the plan and this is what we should do. And they went for it. And now as we look back and then they tell what they were thinking they were like, "well we didn't think we could do it, but you were so sure that we could do it that we said Okay let's try." You know so we were both faking each other into I’m pretty sure we can do it.

M: Right, which is terrifying.

B: It is because those board members signed on and personally guaranteed our loan.

M: Oh gosh.

B: That’s a big thing, that’s huge. And now we have you know, we own three structures. And so now we have equity and you know we secure our own loans. You know we have two loans still, one on the farmer's market and then one here on the post office still that we make monthly payments on that. We have a, we are only in one part of the post office. We rented the other part of the post office out to a financial planner. And so he pays us rents and that rent pays the mortgage. And the apartments you know over the farmer's market, that make us enough that brings in, pays the insurance and the mortgage.

M: So are these revenue generators for you?

B: Right now they're paying for themselves.

M: Just breaking even then.

B: Yes. But in a sense, we're not paying rent.

M: Right, so you have some added benefits.

B: So when we pay them off, they will be revenue generators. And the post office, I mean sorry, or the bed and breakfast, it’s called Gottfried's Cabin. I mean we’re not rolling in the dough but we were paying. With those logs, you can’t just turn the heat, have no AC and no heat. I mean so whether it was vacant or occupied, we had to keep the heat on. And so there was electric bills year round and gas bills and so that was, it was an expense no matter what. And so now it turns a profit. Like I said it's not huge but it's active. It's a part of the community, it's you know paying its dues as far as taxes and yeah.

And it's really nice. You know our chamber loves us because of the other lodging it is sought after. We have quite a bit now. I mean with AirBnB and VRBO and all that nuttiness. I mean there's over, you know besides the hotels, the three hotels, there's 20-22 different properties collecting the bed tax now. But they're all you know a little reluctant to donate and sometimes you just need to be able to put a package together with a night's stay. So that's been the biggest thing.

M: That’s great.

B: You know I mean like we can let the cabin go for free and use it to promote the community as a whole.

M: What a great, oh my gosh, it’s so inspiring.

B: And if you had told us all that we were gonna be doing all this stuff you know from all the way. You know it's just by time. You know somebody looks at us now and they're probably like God you people are nuts or you know but it just came like I said little by little that it seemed like it was a good idea to do all this craziness.

M: Well and that's usually what it does, it's you know it's not one big bite it's tiny little nibbles and all of a sudden you have a post office, a B&B and a farmer's market and you're managing all of that. And you know I think it's, does it ever feel like you have gotten away from the mission or does it feel like you've just absolutely wrapped those up and put them and made them a part of the mission.

B: I think that we've made them a part of the mission we did start. Before I came here, they had lost their 501C3 status in like 98 or 97, and they didn't know that what they were doing was wrong. They were kind of acting like a chamber of commerce offering benefits for membership, and you know that's not how a C3 is supposed to function. And it was actually a volunteer that had gotten disgruntled that turned them in.

M: Oh no.

B: Yeah so we functioned as a C6 for so long that we actually formed our own, we asked about going backwards and like trying to revert back to a C3 and the IRS is like no, you’re better off just starting a new one and so we did. So in 2006, we started our Historic Washington Foundation and how you get to be on that Board of Directors, one of the requirements is that you have to be, you have to have been president of the Main Street Board.

M: Oh wow.

B: So yeah, I do have in a sense I guess, two boards. I mean I work for the Main Street Program Downtown Washington Incorporated, but we do, I essentially serve as staff for our foundation as well. So they are two separate entities, file separate tax returns, two separate board of directors, but they meet together and so it’s definitely, I guess for us we view it as one and for the outside world, they view it as two just legally. And so I have to say having the flexibility of choosing who I want to be in the moment, a C3 or a C6 has been great too. Like we definitely haven’t, we’re not perfect, we screw things up. Things don’t go right, you think it’s going to go one way and it goes another and we worry. Especially, I worry, I don’t want this to sound jerky or anything, but I’m willing to do all of this and one day when I leave, is someone else going to for the pay?

And that’s a concern and so I was, I thought I was going to be forever single and I actually ended up meeting my husband late in life, I mean I was 35 when I met him. So we met in 2012 and I started to use all my time and it was like a little growing pain for my board and stuff. And it’s like well she’s not there, and it’s like well yeah, I’m actually using my vacation time, shocking I know, isn’t it?

M: I’m working only 8 hours in 1 day.

B: So I do talk about that a lot like you know, I’ve been able to do a lot of consulting that I absolutely adore and so I’ve gotten to go to Michigan and I’m headed to Louisiana this month, and Oklahoma and Illinois. And I just absolutely adored every little consulting gig that I’ve gotten in Florida and stuff. That’s what I say, we’re not perfect we do a lot of really cool things, but there are things that we need to do better. The work is never done. After we won GAMSA everybody is like what’s next? I hate that when they do that, it’s like what are you going to do to top yourself. Like god, just running the organization, isn’t that enough. It’s a lot of work.

M: But we do it to ourselves more than anyone else does it.

B: Oh yes. It’s like what are you adding, I’m like nothing.

M: I just need to take a breath.

B: We cannot add one more thing. Everyone is like, you should do this event. I’m like no we’re done. That’s another thing that we, in the past must have gotten in trouble for, you know having that nice diverse mix of funding. Well, one of the reasons that we didn’t make that accreditation back in 06 was because like 75% of our budget came from special events, weather dependent special events.

M: Not sustainable, you can’t count on that. If you have a bad year, it rains out, you have to lay somebody off.

B: You’re in trouble. So that’s one of our things that when we get reviewed they check that and so far we’ve been very good about getting it down. But you know for all the really cool amazing things we’ve done, we still screw up and we don’t do things right all the time and you know that’s a beautiful thing about being in a non-profit working with a bunch of volunteers. And then the next board comes in and you’re like ok what are you guys going to focus on and what are we going to do. It’s been amazing because it’s always different. There are things that you know, wear me down and I think that sometimes the thing that’s going to make me eventually leave is, well number one, they could use some fresh ideas. You know you do get set in your ways the longer you’re at a place. But the one thing about that is that so many Main Streets, like the average, is like 3 years or something like that. It’s hard, that’s hard to get momentum. That’s like the one thing I think about me being here so long is that there is a comfort level.

M: It’s easier to take those kinds of risks if you know the person is going to be around to fix it if it doesn’t work. Or even if it doesn’t work, there are risks to running a B&B, there are risks to running a post office. There’s just even over the initial hump of the investment and renovations. Now all of a sudden you have multiple businesses that are happening that somebody has to know how to run and know how to problem solve. And you’re not leaving, but I also think that as Main Street Directors we can sometimes do a big disservice to our organizations by providing, too much isn’t the right word, but not a realistic workload. Where all of a sudden in order to replace you they have to hire 3 people than the business model is broken. You can’t leave until all the loans are paid off because they're going to need that money.

B: I’m always saying yeah I’m going to finally leave and all these loans are going to get paid off and we’re going to be freaking rolling in the dough.

M: Yeah and why would you leave then, that’s easy. I mean what the heck? And there’s a certain something about the Main Street directors that I have met where I don’t think there’s a single person doing it because they’re getting rich, not monetarily anyway. It’s a passion.

B: It’s a career, it’s a passion. God, it’s different every day.

M: Right, good and bad.

B: I mean I would say the one thing that I do feel like I’m doing worse at as time goes on is the grumpy merchant.

M: The negative nellies. And I’ve only been in this position for about two years and when I first started I thought, I’m going to convert all those grumpy folks.

B: When one leaves another one takes their place.

M: Yeah, and what I’ve started doing is, I don’t know if this is the right answer or not, but every time someone complains I ask what committee they want to be on. And it typically does the job of you can’t complain if you’re not a part of the solution, but it just gets tiring.

B: It does.

M: When you’re working more than you’re supposed to be getting paid for.

B: That is the really cool thing about having a state director that has actually been one of us, is that she does get that and so while she doesn’t want us to sit down and just have, excuse my language, a bitch fest. But sometimes we just need to say it in a safe space and get it off our chest. It’s so funny, we have training that you know the state puts on and we go and we attend and once a year she brings in some kind of like a positive speaker, basically, we feel like she’s bringing a psychiatrist because we feel like she thinks we’re one step from the looney bin. But it’s funny, I mean we’ll end up laughing and crying and it’s good because you build a support network so you can call someone that’s around the state and still understands how your state works and everything but it’s a safe person to be like if I have one more merchant.

M: Yeah and I think it’s so important to know that there’s nothing, there’s sometimes nothing you can do to change a situation. You can give them, that merchant or that community member, that volunteer the world and it’s still not going to satisfy them and you just need someone to tell you that that’s ok and it’s not your fault and you didn’t do anything wrong and to move on and to focus on the hundred other people who love what you’re doing and value it. But it’s so easy to get focused on that negative person or that negative situation. And I suppose the longer you’re in this kind of a position, you have that kind of wisdom of knowing that, but it also adds up. I mean there’s kind of two sides to it like intellectually you can know that some people are just going to complain, but on the other side, you can think, well that isn’t how I want my Main Street to be. I want my Main Street to be one happy family that gets along and supports each other and everyone is on the same page, but that isn’t necessarily realistic. So it’s good to have those others, at least for me too, in Minnesota, to have those other Main Streeters. I just can’t say enough about how important that is. To keep our sanity.

B: Yes, that is definitely it. Am I crazy am I not crazy? Oh, you have that too?

M: Well it’s just been such a pleasure to talk to you! Is there anything else you want to make sure we talk about, or that you wanted to make sure that the people know about your town.

Edit out 40:46 to 40:51

B: Well I mean, we are, I’ll just give you a little spiel in town a little bit. But yeah, we’re about 45 minutes west of St. Louis on the Missouri river. Founded you know folks in the area, in the late 1700’s early 1800’s here. But we were officially founded as a community in 1839 by Lucinda Owens.

M: A woman?

B: Yes, a woman. We were supposed to be founded a few years earlier but her husband was shot in the back while on his way over to the county seat to formulate. So he had to sign the paperwork, so we were founded by a woman. No photo, of course, exists of her, plenty of her male relatives but not of her. Her house is still in downtown so that’s really exciting that we still have that right outside of our downtown district. Right over Missouri river so we do enjoy being near the water. We actually just got our brand new bridge, a $16 million project. Our big tourism draw, we’re in the heart of wine country so within an hour of Washington there’s something like 36 wineries. Actually, there’s more than that. Within a half an hour there’s 36 and within an hour of Washington, there are 68 wineries. We certainly enjoy our beverages of all kind here, goes well with our German heritage. So that is definitely something you’ll see at our festivals, it’s celebrating that German heritage. While we have children’s festivals, we do have plenty of adult festivals where we partake in beverages.

M: Well you have to have a balance.

B: It’s a good balance, yes. It’s definitely something that we enjoy. And my biggest piece of advice I think from being in this so long is go to training. And go to trainings more than with just the one staff person. Find a way to excite your board members and your volunteers and get them to go. We do not pay for our board members to attend training.

M: They pay themselves?

B: They pay themselves and I was very lucky, early on I got to go to D.C. for two years for a couple of weeks to do the certified Main Street Manager and that was unbelievable. We did not have the money for me to do that, a travel agent donated my airfare one year. A board member used the miles on his credit card another year to fly me there. Another board member used their credit card points to get my hotel room. The rotary and alliance paid for my hotel stay the second year. So really, just don’t be afraid to do crazy things to piece it all together. Where there is a will, there is a way. And if you’re excited about something, can share that enthusiasm, it is infectious. It has been huge for us to be partners, equal partners, with our city and our chamber. We’re not in competition with them, we’re working together to make a better community. And as long as you remember and as long as you can get comfortable with not having to be the one that gets credit, you’re going to go a really far way. It will give you a lot of longevity. You know, it's not always perfect but we try really hard. One of the things that we do is that our city administrator, our chamber exec and myself, we meet once a month over beverages and we’re just friends. There’s so much time that you’re spending together to make your community a great place, why not have a great friendship out of it. And I know that’s not going to happen for everyone, but just remember, you never know what kind of a day someone’s had. Being that positive person, smiling and pushing through, it can really go a long way.

M: I think it helps to have those people. They know firsthand the challenges that you’re facing.

B: Yeah and they know the same people probably.

M: Yeah and a lot of times there’s somebody in our community, there was a city council person that was not a fan of Downtown Main Street for a while. Then he turned his sights on one of the other organizations and I was like yeah, sorry but that too shall pass. He’s one vote so it’s just nice to have that camaraderie when things are though. It’s almost more important than when things are good. It’s easy to have a good relationship when things are good.

B: Agreed, yeah I totally agree. Just dig into the other resources. I get these great emails, I think her name is Joan Garry, and I actually printed out something on one of the emails she sent and it’s taped right next to my desk. And it’s called the 8 habits of a highly effective non-profit leader and I just love them because sometimes I just have to look at them like yeah yeah. One is to ask for help. Two is to talk less, listen more. Number three is exude passion, number four is ask really good questions. Number five is touch the work, be the work. Number six is get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Number seven is apologize more often, even if it’s not your fault, I added the even if it’s not your fault.

M: Yeah that’s tough.

B: Number eight is to be joyful and she added the ninth one which is sharpen the saw. Which really is, go to training be around people like you. Even the national conference, sometimes if nothing else, even if you don’t go to the classes, you should go to the classes, but even if you don’t, just being around your people is huge.

M: Right, that’s why I love the conferences because you are around people that love their communities, they love people, they love history and it’s my people. And that’s why I wanted to do this podcast too because I can’t be the only one, wondering how everyone else is doing it. How are they staying positive and making big changes and little changes and having influence in their communities and facing burnout and working through it? So that’s why I thought I love these people, they’re the most fun and they’re the most accepting people and I just think we’re so lucky to work around people who believe in their community. And community I think that translates to the main street program.

B: It does and I think your mentors come from all over. When I started, my National Main Street person was Sheri Stuart, who is now the State Coordinator for Oregon, and she always told me that she believed in me and that was huge. It was huge. So when we won GAMSA in 2012 I had to let her know that I am who I am today as an Executive Director because of Gayla Rosen and Sheri Stuart. Our state person now is Norma and she is a rockstar, I mean she supports us in every aspect. She was, again I think this is important, same with Sheri, same with Gayla, they were Main Street Executive Directors. And I think that’s a huge piece and Kathy La Plante, I adore all these women and that’s really a big part of, I think, where I am today and having those wonderful influences and knowing where to go and find them.

M: Well those relationships and knowing that you have people that have your back, that can help you get out of a sticky situation if you find yourself in one, I think helps you take bigger risks. Because you know that you’re not alone, and even if, let’s say one of your projects would have flopped, that wouldn’t have changed how they feel about you. That’s in and of itself a lesson. So having those people behind you and nurturing those relationships, I think, makes it so much easier to take risks. I know that if I have a crazy idea I call one of the main street other coordinators, or managers or executive directors and then we talk about it. And then I talk to the Minnesota coordinator and it helps you think everything through so much better and it’s a better idea by the time you get it to the community or to the board or whatever. You just have so many more resources.

B: That’s what I think about Main Street, it’s a beta copy and probably you are not having an original idea and someone has tried it before so learn from their successes.

M: I don’t know anybody that owns a post office Debora Jet. I love it!

B: I don’t know of any.

M: That’s pretty special.

B: Yeah pretty stupid one.

M: I am not judging. This has been so fun and I am so glad we got the chance to talk and that you’re out there and that you’re working hard. Your years of experience, obviously, are invaluable to those of us who are still new to this. I can’t wait to meet you, I will be at the conference in Seattle.

B: Oh great! Did you go to Kansas City?

M: I went to Kansas City, I was really sick. I took one of the classes there so it’s all kind of a blur, but I’m hoping that Seattle I’m going to make the most of Seattle and make up for lost time.

B: Well cool, I will definitely be there. I’m going and like I said I’m going to Louisiana for training, I’m doing promotions for them later on in the month so I will definitely mention your podcast, see if I can get you some more listeners.

M: Well thank you, I really appreciate it and I’d like to include if you have a website or any personal information about your consulting and include that too if that’s something that you want to do.

B: I don’t have a website for that, I just kind of get asked by Norma or Kathy or Gayla says, oh you need to talk to this person, and so that’s like how I got the Florida and the Oklahoma gig.

M: We’ll make sure to include your email so people can get a hold of you for that too and I can’t wait to see pictures of your post office, your B&B and the pavilion. We’ll include all that in the show information on the website so that people can see what we’re talking about and it’s truly inspirational. So thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today and I look forward to meeting you in person soon.

Note: Since we taped this episode, Eliott has since moved on to another position and is no longer with Downtown Shakopee.

Website for Downtown Shakopee: https://www.downtownshakopee.org/

Facebook Page for Downtown Shakopee: https://www.facebook.com/DowntownShakopee/

Show Transcript:

Elliott Johnson- Hello, I am good. How are you Megan?

Megan Tsui - I'm fantastic. Elliott thanks so much for being here today. And I'd love to hear your story of your Rhythm on the Rails music series. But first, let's learn a little bit more about you. Can you fill us in on how have you gotten involved in downtown revitalization.

E - Yes, I would love to. This is my inaugural podcast debut so I'm so excited to be here with you. I am honored to be talking about what's going on in Shakopee and I can't wait to see what happens here. So Shakopee, Minnesota is located at the Metropolitan Community right outside of Minneapolis and St. Paul's. So we're about a 35-minute drive from Minneapolis with 40,000 people strong here in Shakopee. And it's a quaint little community which is kind of nice. So we've got the advantage of being right near a large city but a lot of people in our community also feel that we're still far away enough that we are our own unique destination which is a really nice combination.

So I started getting involved with downtown revitalization in a previous job of mine back in Brookings, South Dakota, where we were a college town. The downtown needed some revitalization so they asked me to come work with the small businesses right there on Main Street to see what we could do to make people want to shop, live, play right in the downtown district. So flashback four years ago, now I worked with Brookings South Dakota for two years and we were in a good spot so I knew I wanted to go see what else was out there for Main Streets and Shakopee, Minnesota had an opening and so I said let's try it out. So I worked with the Chamber of Visitors Bureau right here in Shakopee, Minnesota with their Main Street program and I've been doing that for two years now and it has been such a fun ride.

And so when I first got here, I sat down with some of their business owners who were getting together once a month just to talk about the state of the downtown, what's going on, where they want to see things going. It was kind of like a strategic planning session if you will, and I kind of just ended up falling into it right on my second week on the job. So they had all these vision boards of what they wanted to do and kind of a cohesive message that came across all their different conversations were they wanted live music.

They wanted a downtown kind of community festival and they wanted it to be free to people who showed up. And so I took a deep breath. I knew I was new at my job and I was like “OK, here we go. Let's put together a summer concert series because you want the music, you want the community festival feel, and you want it to be free and we've got a Main Street program that can kind of be the face behind it if you are willing to rally together for it.” So they were all so excited. I kind of explained the rundown of what it would look like. But before we get into the logistics of how it goes, one of the things I said in that first meeting was, “You have to pay for it and we'll make sure it happens.” because I think a lot of times Main Street programs are so good at hearing what downtown businesses want to do.

Everyone loves ideas, it's fun to give ideas but a lot of people are just kind of hesitant to say “Okay but wait, what does the budget look like?” because it's so hard to put on these successful events, if there aren’t businesses who are willing to back it with actual dollars. And so that was one of the first things we said. I said, “I'm willing to put our staff behind this, I can get the chamber staff to get involved, but I need you guys to put some heavy dollar signs behind this so we can make sure it works successfully.” So that’s kind of the long story short about who I am and where we are and what this monster of a concert series started out as.

M - Oh I love that you told them they had to pay for it. I think that's one of the biggest lessons as a Main Street Director, or anyone, who is trying to revitalize. Ideas are super cheap, they are free and they are a dime a dozen.

E - It’s like black Friday for sure on ideas, we can all get a really good deal on it.

M - But it's the whole idea of, if you want it to be free, then it has to be paid for some other way.

That was so smart of you to kind of lay that down right away.

E -  Right.

M - So after that meeting and you laying down the law that there had to be somebody to pay for it, you'd have some staff but that's the start, that's the very very beginning. How did you make it happen? Well maybe just give us kind of an overview of the event itself and then we'll get into kind of more details.

E - Yeah I love that. So we in Shakopee, right in our downtown district, the train actually comes right through our downtown which is really unique. So we knew we wanted to incorporate some sort of atmosphere where the summer concert series was going to be right on the streets of our downtown. So we wanted to make sure that as the chamber, it's our job to make sure the business community is being heard, being utilized and people are shopping small. So we knew our best that was to somehow utilize the streets right in our downtown and we wanted to cross-market the fact that we were also a train station kind of town so we came up with the concept of calling it Rhythm on the Rails. And so our stage was set up right on the end of one of our streets where the backdrop behind the stage was actually going to be the train that came through. So we knew we worked with we worked with the company that is in charge of the railway that goes through they’re called Union Pacific and they gave us a schedule of what times the train was coming through on Wednesday evenings because we knew we wanted it to be unique in the sense that since we're right in the Minneapolis area people leave for the lakes every weekend.

And so we took a challenge upon ourselves by doing it on a Wednesday night, which was faced with some opposition, I'll be honest some of the business owners downtown didn't think it was going to work. No one wanted to come downtown on a Wednesday night for live music, keep it on the weekend do it on a Saturday. And it turned out to be the total opposite of the truth. I mean people are hungry to do things with their family during the week. Get out of the house, get the kids busy, go out on date night. I mean Wednesday was probably one of the best things we could have done for ourselves because nothing else is going on during the week.

So Rhythm on the Rails is a Wednesday night Summer Concert Series over five Wednesdays in the summer. Which is a daunting idea when you think about it right away, but people loved that it wasn't just one weekend. So when you ask the community what's unique about Rhythm on the Rails, it's different than just your typical weekend festival that I know a lot of businesses, communities put on where it's a Friday-Saturday come down to Shakopee as just for the weekend sort of thing. Ours happens over the course of the summer and you really feel it too, I mean it goes on for quite a while and I know of some communities that do it seven weeks. Some communities that do it all summer long starting right after Memorial Day going through Labor Day. It's really kind of what your budget can handle and how important it is to your community I guess.

So we found a solution with five Wednesdays in a row and it's been really fun. So we do a Wednesday night from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. So we hit families right when they're getting off of work. Grab a few hours, an hour or so, to get home and change, get the kids settled and then they actually come down for dinner. So we've got food trucks, we've got inflatables, we've got beer tents.

We have a set up on the streets where it's really something for all ages, but we want to make sure it happens in time where you feel like you can spend your whole evening with us. And then there's just live music going on the entire time as well

M - Wow. So let's talk about what a big production. I mean it's a lot to do that once, but then to do that you know multiple times over summer and week after week after week. I mean, I'm assuming you have to set up a stage and you have to get the food trucks in the right place and close down the street and all those kinds of things that people don't always think of when it's an event like that. Can you tell me what was the biggest challenge?

E - Yeah so the breakdown of kind of how I went about this was first and foremost, needing to get the sponsorships lined up to make sure there was a budget in place. I know the Chamber works with a consultant firm here in the Minneapolis area by the name of Hello Booking and what they do is focus on bands, staging, sound, lighting, anything that you would need for a concert. Whether it's a series of concerts, one large concert, they do a really good job working with you on small budget/large budget. They kind of break down based off of your needs, how much you'll need just to make sure the concert runs.

So we worked with them first and said here's what we want to do, “We want five Wednesdays in a row. We want regional sized bands that will bring people out, buys them beer, have some fun and also just get the conversation going about our downtown. What's our budget for a stage, lighting, production, and the bands. And the caveat for us was that we wanted them to make sure it was all running smoothly. So that's kind of the nice part is if you set it up with them right away they'll provide staffing for you so we didn't have to touch lighting, we didn't have to touch stage or sound.

That all happened week by week with crews specifically. So the stage crew came in at 10:00 a.m. they were set up by noon, by 1:00 o'clock the sound crew was coming through and it was such a well-oiled machine all because we decided to pay a pretty penny to get the company hired right off the bat. So this Hello Booking firm found us the bands, found us the stage, found us the lighting, and the sound production and we didn’t have to think about it afterwards. We signed a contract, we read over it with them and it was all set from there.

Now, it was super expensive and I don't want to downplay that. I mean, we're talking six-figure budgets here where we needed to make sure everything was aligned. Where in year one, our budget was probably about 140,000 in expenses. In year two, it became 220,000 dollars to put this event on. So yeah we're six figures deep at this point and it all is because we have the right people in place to make sure it's running smoothly. And so you look back and the reason we're able to attract, I think our average this year was right around 5,000 people every Wednesday night, because it's such a smooth operation when you have the right people in place. And so the most daunting piece, going back to that initial question, was what’s our budget? What is the scope of work we want? Do we want one concert? Do we want five? Do we want seven? Once our chamber staff was able to figure out what we wanted to happen for our downtown, we were able to go to our consulting firm and say “Here's what we want. How much do you need?”

M - And then how did you raise the money.? Because if it's a free event, you don't have ticket sales so how did you raise the money? You mentioned sponsorships. How did you raise the sponsors, you know, how did you approach businesses or organizations and then is there a revenue stream from food truck or kind of anything like that?

E - Yeah yeah. So once we got done talking with the booking agent about stage, sound and bands, we got that price and then we went to a marketing firm. And we knew we wanted to make sure the marketing was top notch these first few years as well.

And so let's say it was about 80,000 dollars, given this is a quote that I can't remember from the first year of course, but roughly 80,000 if you will. 70 to 80 thousand just for the band and all that equipment and then we wanted to also make sure there were 20,000 dollars set aside for the marketing that first year. That was the commercials, that was the logo, that was the online promotion from SEO to YouTube ads to Facebook ads.

We had everything in place to make sure the banners were cohesive, the posters were cohesive. If you heard anything about Rhythm on the Rails, we wanted to make sure people knew there was a specific brand in place that it all looks the same. So we got the price point from the booking agent, we got our price point from our marketing agent and we put together a budget based off of that. So we knew what was going to be the bare minimum we needed to raise to make sure this was going to happen free of charge to our community.

So we broke it down into four pieces, which was kind of unique. In any sort of event that we put on at the Chamber, event or program, we have a pretty unique structure about how we how we use sponsorships. There's a top tier, a middle tier, and a bottom tier if you will. Top tier spends the most/gets the most out of the marketing that they're purchasing. We tell them that we're going to introduce you to an average of 5000 people every Wednesday night right here in downtown Shakopee. It's going to be marketing for your business, you're going to have conversations week by week with your customer base. Here's how much you have to pay so on and so forth.

So that top tier got branding everywhere our Rhythm on the Rails logo went, so did theirs. And so we have our local hospitals, one of our sponsors, who have been back two years in a row now. So in our first inaugural year, our local hospital partnered with Minnesota tourism, actually. So what’s really unique is our statewide tourism branch does first-year grants for companies and nonprofits who are trying to put on events that are going to do good for the greater whole of your county, of your region, of the state if you will. And so it's a one time grant that you can apply for. And so I applied for the grant amount that was going to be matching what that top tier would be if you will. So a hospital and Minnesota tourism were the top two that first year. And then we did a middle of mil sponsorship which was less than the top tier but also a pretty hefty fee. That was the middle size and then a bottom fee for your local businesses who wanted to get involved, but didn't necessarily have as large of a budget to get so well involved that the larger sponsors were able to get involved with.

M - Wow and did you find it hard to sell those sponsorships when you started going out to people?

E - No, I was so excited and I think our chamber was so excited as was the community. What's unique about this, and I think what can be relatable, to any downtown district is we wait until someone asks us to put something on. So we weren’t trying to make a pitch, the pitch came to us. So they said we want a concert series, we want a taste of Shakopee event, we want whatever the case may be. They want it in the quaint downtown district and they are looking for a chamber or a Main Street District or a Main Street program to put it on for them and that's really where the excitement happened. so we already knew they wanted it to happen, it was just our job to put it together for them. And so luckily enough because of that chain of command, if you will, the sponsorships were able to come in therefore because of it. And quite frankly we have to keep in mind of Main Street programs or chambers for that matter, we're the outlet to connect commerces to community to these small businesses.

It's our job to connect them to their customer base. And so whether that's a concert series, a holiday parade, it doesn't matter what you're doing. Our job, in my opinion, is to make sure people are frequenting their businesses. And if that means putting on these elaborate productions that makes families love coming to downtown and then also check out the restaurants and businesses that are right there as well. We're doing our job because their sales are increasing at the same time. So the sponsorships were able to flow because they were buying marketing, they weren't buying sponsorship. We were pitching it as here is your marketing that can go right into your marketing budget and we can promise that you're going to see your sales increase every Wednesday night more than they were last summer because there was nothing going on last summer on Wednesday night from 6 to 9 p.m..

M - I'm assuming that the larger sponsors were probably larger businesses that are constantly looking for employees, or you know or something to offer the people who work for them. That can come down and feel proud that the place they work for is sponsoring something and that adds to that connection too and so smart, you know large businesses. I think sometimes Main Street organizations feel like we have to stay small and stay only going after those Main Street businesses, local businesses, but really the truth is that, what we found in Red Wing too, is that those larger businesses want to connect as well.

So it's great that you've decided to kind of structure that way so that they could participate and you could put on a bigger show because of it. But then there's also opportunities for those smaller local businesses, something that's affordable. What kind of increase did those downtown businesses see? You know restaurants or retail or whoever's open. Did you do any kind of reporting or anything like that, do you know what was the impact?

E - Yeah it's something that we really wanted to focus on because we knew as a chamber we didn't want to just put on an event to say we did it for the community. Although that's important, we knew at the end of the day our job is to represent the business community. So we wanted to make sure it was making a difference for them.

So at the end of the concert series in the first year, and we haven't gotten around to doing this year yet just because it ended last week, so we're still kind of in the process of doing our own clean up if you will. But in the first year, we asked businesses to give us their sales increase or decrease from the starting date of our concert on that Wednesday through the last Wednesday of it. And just tell us based off of their 2016 Wednesday sale versus their 2017 Wednesday sale, what kind of difference did it make during that time frame. And I have to look back in my notes, I can't remember if we did just that Wednesday or if we did the five weeks collectively including Monday through Sunday. But regardless, what we found was that it was on average, I want to say a 27 percent increase in sales on Wednesday night comparatively to the summer before. And so for a lot of these businesses, 27 percent in sales increase is really a make or break for some of them. It's funny because I was just having a conversation this morning with the local brewery in our downtown district and he said this past summer right here in 2018 their Wednesday night sales were comparative to their Saturday evening sales.

And so anyone who knows small business, I mean especially as a brewery or a restaurant for that matter, if your Wednesdays are matching your Saturdays you know you're making an impact. And so it'll be interesting again to see kind of what that impact was for them. So a 27 percent increase in sales. And then we also asked them to give us a dollar amount for a lot of programs because we also do a pretty robust kind of holiday event. And I know, kudos to Red Wing because you do killer holiday events, I do know that much. And so we asked them to give us price points on those events as well and we see about last year in 2017 because of our events like the holiday one and this concert series, it was an increase of 220,000 dollars in sales for these businesses.

M - Wow

E - And that's just because of these programs we’re putting on that the community loves and keeps coming back for. Because it's such a positive environment that they now associate with downtown Shakopee which is the best part.

M - I think that's one of the keys, is that it's easier to measure you know, the day of sales increase or impact. But what’s harder to measure are kind of the ripple effects. And you know I just know that for our events, that people go into a store that they've never been in before or haven't been in for a long time, because they're downtown because there are some special inside, some special promotion that they're offering during the event. And it just really changes people's shopping habits and makes them think twice about where they go buy something or what they do for fun or how they entertain themselves in their own towns. And that doesn’t even count the kind of tourism draw. I mean, I'm assuming that people come from all over, not just Shakopee, to come to your series so that they're getting a taste of your downtown in a new way as well.

E - And that's what's so funny. Just this past concert series last week, we were wrapping up and one of the residents who's running for city council coming up, wrote to us just said: “Thank you so much for putting on another wonderful series for our downtown and our community.” And she said, “What's funny is I asked, I was walking around during the concert just having conversations with residents getting what they wanted to keep going for community.” And a lot of the time she would run into people who weren't even from Shakopee, they just knew about the concert series from friends, online and they just had to get down here for it. And so like you said, you see that ripple effect now where the tourism side of things. I mean people are coming to, not only Shakopee which they've never been to before, but a downtown that has so many small businesses that our community was founded on which is the best part as well.

M - Absolutely. So if you were going to give advice to someone who you know, who is maybe board or a group of businesses in their community decides that they wanted to try something like this. What's the one biggest piece of advice you'd have for someone who wanted to start an event like this?

E - I think from my experience with that, and whether it's a concert series or any sort of program you're putting on for your Main Street, the success in my opinion comes from letting the businesses or letting your audience tell you what they want. Because then they will be your supporters, your outreach, they will be the ones who fund it. I mean, I think if you allow them to give you those ideas and then work with them in some sort of strategic planning setting, kind of like we talked about at the beginning of this podcast, where I kind of fell into this elaborate envisioned meeting where they were trying to scope out what was going to happen over the next five years.

And that's really what sparked these conversations and so allowing your businesses or your residents to give feedback about what they want to see and then using that as the inspiration behind what you come up with. So that's kind of the inspirational side of things but I'll say like I've probably nailed here over and over again, it all starts with the funding. My boss, the Chamber President here in Shakopee, would have never let this happen had we not had such structured financial piece in place to make sure it was going to run without a hitch. Because we aren't concert experts, we aren't stage experts.

We wanted to make sure we had the money set aside to have professionals come in to make sure the experience for our customer base was top notch from the beginning. So you have to make sure businesses are willing to back it and having those, what I like to call, sweaty conversations with them right away saying, “This won't be cheap and if you are willing to support it financially, we're willing to make sure, yes we'll run it effectively for you.”

M - That’s fantastic. Oh I’m so excited and I’m so excited that it’s grown, I mean, the fact that it’s grown is good and hard because it just means you have to raise more money too. Oh you know what, what kind of revenue sharing deal do you have for beer or food trucks or any of that kind of stuff?

E - Yeah so that’s the really important part I think. We, our chamber as a nonprofit, we take the beer sales so we run the beer tents, which is kind of a unique setup. So city applications, closing down the streets, none of this would have been possible without our partnership with the City of Shakopee, which is why we’re so grateful too. Because we were able to work with them and having that relationship is vital. Make sure your streets are closed properly, you know exactly what has to take place to make sure you have your temporary liquor licensing. I mean, there is so much behind the scenes, that if you don’t have that relationship with your city administrator, and quite frankly, city clerk because they’re the ones with all the knowledge of what has to happen from a state level, it wouldn’t be possible. So we worked to make sure we were the beer sale and so because of that, what’s unique also in these kind of conversations, and I think you can attest to this too, is a lot of time I think businesses and residents think we’re kind of like a volunteer nonprofit where all we’re doing is just volunteering our free time.

And that is just so beyond the case, where since this is our full time day job, we know that we have to make sure there is operational fees that are included in that budget. So one of the things I told our sponsors when pitching these concepts to them, the money that you put, not only goes into the marketing for you, to provide for the bands we want to book, the staging. A portion of it, it’s also going to go to make sure our staff can provide the proper hours we need to make sure this goes off effectively.  So we always air on the side of the 20% range, where of your expenses, let’s say it’s 180,000 dollars to put it on this year, 20% of that should reflect how much goes into your staff time to make sure it runs correctly. So we take the beer sales and ideally, the income you make from this concert series or whatever program you do, should be right around that 20% range to know that you’re not doing this at no cost to all the employees that ran this program if you will.

M - Right, I think that’s often a misconception like you said that people think it’s just well we just put it on, everything happens with volunteers just a little bit of staff time to oversee it so we don’t need a lot of operational expenses. But really, to do something really well, I think, and to have a broader vision and to do transformational things in our downtowns you have to be paid for. It’s not going to happen just on the backs of volunteers, because they get burned out, they get tired, it’s exciting in the beginning.

E - And we all know how exhausting, and it’s no offense to volunteers, they’re beautiful, they’re important, they’re necessary. But from a volunteer standpoint, it’s hard to rely on that especially, for a week by week concert series. I mean, they have full time jobs, they have families, it’s tough. So when you tell these businesses we have to do this correctly and that’s why we’re including this kind of conversation, to make sure you know an operational fee has to be included too. And it’s hard from a nonprofit standpoint, any nonprofit can relate to this, you know you’re doing betterment for your community and therefore in this world you’re not a moneymaker, you’re a community maker. And that’s why it's tough sometimes to be willing to say, “Ok we’re doing good for this community but we also need to provide for our nonprofit as well” and it’s ok.

And that’s why we need to be having those conversations. In staff meetings, we are trying to read up on that research and how often times nonprofits shy away from those conversations rather than willing to embrace the fact that our communities have really well put together nonprofits that are doing good and we appreciate your backing of it at the same time financially. So, it’s a lesson to be learned for sure. But, if you’re not willing to kind of go in with it spearheading that conversation you will never see the budget to make sure this runs successfully if you will.

M - I think that’s true and I think that again, the ripple effect go off into other events and other programs that you want to do. We kind of have to teach our local businesses and our larger corporations that are in our towns how to be philanthropic. Because otherwise they think “well it’s just happening, that parade just happens ok, you know I don’t have to give anything.” Then you wonder why it’s not bigger, why we haven’t included bigger bands in our event or why we’re not expanding.

Well, we haven't taught each other how to ask for money and how to ask for things to get bigger and better and be able to provide more of that operational income so that we can continue to bring other things as well. So I think that it’s always a difference between scarcity thinking and abundance thinking and you obviously have an abundance way of thinking about this. It’s not how small can we make it so that it’s safe and we can just pick from the same people who have been giving to us for the last 10 years but obviously you said, that’s not going to work. If we want to do big things we have to go big and we have to take those risks and make bigger asks and of course that’s always a little scary for people.

E - And what’s really interesting is, one of the things we do at the concert series for example or the holiday events we put on is we put it back on the residents as well. So when we’re doing introductions on the stage with the microphones, we always make sure we say, “The reason this is free today is because of the business community. So if you want to keep seeing these free community events make sure you do your part by shopping small, supporting local, and just simply thanking these businesses for putting this together for you.” Because it’s one thing for us to run them, but without their support and so that’s really helped as well. We’ve gotten a lot of great feedback from the business community saying people are just so appreciative of what’s happening downtown and they tell us that and that’s rewarding enough for the continued conversation of these sponsorships as well. So it’s not just the burden of the businesses and the Main Street program, we also put some burden on the residents to help us out here. Like make sure they know, you have a part in this and your part is to shop and tell these sponsors you are grateful for what they are doing here.

M - I think that’s the most important part because isn’t that as a Main Street, isn’t that our whole point? It’s connecting commerce to the community and making people feel like a mesh, they’re together. And the stronger the community and the commerces together, the stronger the entire community is. So I guess at the end of the day, that’s our mission in a nutshell.

E - Yeah

M - That’s a great way to wrap it up Elliot, good job!

E - This was so much fun! I feel like I’m in depth with the podcast world now and I just, I loved it. I loved every minute of it. Let’s do it again.

M - Well thank you so much. We will, we definitely will. I plan on having lots of interviews with lots of people that can talk about not just events, but other programs and projects that are happening in downtowns. And I know you’re doing other great stuff too so we’ll have another fun time.

E - I can’t wait to listen to you and “travel the country” because I really, it’s always good to hear from what’s happening all across the Main Streets. So I commend you for this podcast and I’m thankful you let me be a part of it so good luck to you and I can’t wait to listen in.

M - Well thank you so much, I appreciate it. All right, I’m gonna put links and show notes to Elliot’s information and to information about the city of Shakopee and also Rhythm on the Rails. So stay tuned for that and look for that in the show notes. Thanks, Elliot and you have a great day and we’ll see you downtown!  

Show Transcript

Hello and welcome to the trailer for the Meet Me Downtown Podcast. I’m really excited to be bringing this podcast to life and I’m really excited you’re here to listen to it. When I started my position as Executive Director in Red Wing, Minnesota for their Downtown Main Street Organization, it was very clear to me that other people in all parts of the country were doing other really cool things in their downtowns. I wondered if there was a way to hear about some of those things that could be replicated in my downtown. And I didn’t find a great place for that so I thought, well I’ll start one, and I thought a podcast is a great place for that.

My hope is to bring together people from all across the United States who are doing important and hard work in their downtowns to keep them vibrant and healthy and to do the work of revitalization. Our downtowns have taken a hit in the last, you know, 20 years where retail has changed and especially in rural areas, agriculture has shifted so drastically that it’s really put so much strain on our downtowns that they need all the help they can get. While I love the Main Street program, I know it’s not available in all areas of the country and so I thought, well maybe this podcast can reach a lot of those places and have people learn more about what others are doing in their towns.

So we’re gonna learn about all sorts of different things. We’ll learn about events and festivals and barbecues and music fests and all those kinds of things that make downtown really come alive. But we’ll also learn about development projects, interesting collaborations and partnerships that have come together to help support downtowns. We’ll hear from Main Street Directors and Chamber Commerce Directors and volunteers. Other folks who love downtown and love their community and understand that it’s going to take a lot of effort to keep our downtowns alive. Of course with online shopping and the different kinds of challenges to retail, we’ll hear about experiential shopping opportunities, that getting people to have things have happened in their towns that are experience based is going to be vital to getting people to shop and to make a decision to not go online to shop, but instead to get in their car, or get their shoes on and go for a walk down to their downtown.

I just thought I’d maybe say a little bit about me. I have been a director for a couple of years and I’m a part-time director. I also have my own business called Unleashed Consultants where I provide marketing communications, especially around social media and digital marketing to nonprofits. And I just love it, and it works and fits so nicely with my work. I have a degree in Business, that’s actually my background. I’ve been a business consultant for over 16 years and so I come at a lot of the strategies in my work in downtown kind of from a business perspective. But then I also have a Master’s degree in Organizational Leadership and I focus on nonprofits and so I think that my background is really interesting for the work we do in downtowns because it is such a mix of business, commerce, and community, nonprofits, etc. So I hope to be able to share my experience of what we do in Red Wing and the things that we learn as we go. We are not always successful, we have some great successes but sometimes things don’t go the way we planned or they turn out a little differently than we thought.

So I hope to share my experiences in my town as well, but also to help to spread the word about how others are doing wonderful work in downtowns all across the United States. So I hope you’ll join me in this podcast experiment. Make sure to go to my website, meetmedowntownpodcast.com and there’s a place to actually contact me if you want to find out more about me or contact me for any reason, but there’s also a place to submit an idea.

I know that there are so many wonderful things going on out in the world and out in our downtowns and I would love to know if you know somebody who is just wonderful or some project that just really went well or something that didn’t go well and that’s something that now you know better and can teach others about and prevent them from making some of the same mistakes. That’s just as important sometimes I think that the ones you knock out of the park.

So again, meetmedowntownpodcast.com is my website. Go there and you can learn all about me and all about this podcast. And there are also stories on there that don’t necessarily make it onto the podcast about some of my travels and some of the things that I see and experience in my travels because I travel a lot. I love to experience other people's downtowns. So there you have it, again join us for the Meet Me Downtown Podcast I’ll be talking to you soon. Thanks!

Well, thanks for joining us on this episode of Meet Me Downtown Podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast anywhere podcasts are available. You can also join others that love their downtowns in our Meet Me Downtown Podcast’s Facebook Group, just search for it on Facebook. And you’ll want to subscribe to the blog at meetmedowntownpodcast.com to stay up to date on our next adventure.