NSR helped to strengthen the services, programs, and facilities of Focus on Renewal through an Action Plan to support the Sto-Rox community. The consulting project, also supported by the McKees Rocks CDC, included internal stakeholder analysis, scans of previous studies and reports, a community-led survey process, and Vision Labs with domain experts to synthesize findings and inform recommendations.
Photo credit: Will Halim, Storyburgh
Launch Wilkinsburg is a civic innovation lab, supporting the development of a vibrant community through social businesses, nonprofit projects, and community engagement.
Launch Wilkinsburg is committed to equitable community development and implemented in partnership with the Wilkinsburg Chamber of Commerce. In order to determine which areas of impact are top priority, we reviewed community planning documents, surveyed stakeholders through our Vibrancy Index, and held an interactive public forum. This local stakeholder insight and discussions identified community values and priorities for development including:
Additionally, the Ignite Wilkinsburg workshop connected over 30 startup leaders and mentors to further their plans, strategic connections, and identify resources.
Launch Hilltop is an inspiration dojo, where a collective of passionate, driven entrepreneurs challenge perceptions to drive personal and community change.
Following neighborhood discussions and assessment with local stakeholders, the Hilltop neighborhoods anchored by the Allentown business district were selected as New Sun Rising’s second Launch community.
New Sun Rising’s Launch Hilltop provides services and programming to a number of organizations and initiatives committed to promoting inclusive neighborhood redevelopment, in partnership with local stakeholders such as Work Hard Pittsburgh, the Hilltop Alliance, Pgh Works, RE360, and others. New Sun Rising works closely with these partners, businesses and community projects to create positive opportunity and change with the community.
Learn more about the Allentown’s priorities for development through the Equity Cafe series: Discovery, Dream + Design, and Destiny
Listen to audio stories from community members
Launch Millvale is an civic innovation lab, where socially focused entrepreneurs create new opportunities around the food, energy, water, air, mobility, and equity goals of the community.
Initially building the local food system, Launch Millvale broadened to support sustainability leaders activating the Millvale EcoDistrict Pivot 2.0 Plan. The EcoDistricts community planning process, led by partner and
renowned Pittsburgh firm evolveEA, brings together citizens, neighborhood organizations, businesses, and local government to develop a unified vision for their community.
Social enterprises and initiatives supported by Launch Millvale receive services such as fiscal sponsorship, growth strategy, and funding. Activities are coordinated by Zaheen Hussain, the Millvale Sustainability Coordinator and NSR Director of Sustainability, in collaboration with the partners of the Millvale EcoDistrict Collaborative (Millvale Community Library, the Borough of Millvale, Millvale Community Development Corporation, and New Sun Rising).
Work Hard Pittsburgh creates services and relationships that position Allentown as the Southern hub for inclusive business development in the City of Pittsburgh and surrounding neighborhoods. Their social impact projects seed programming that will better position the region to grow and attract talent, money, and business. It includes: Launching of a Software Academy that produces 8-15 second-career software engineers every 12 weeks, and Services to the Street produces, distributes, and designs impact measurement of digital media and marketing content to the mainstreet corridor of Allentown.
PearlArts Studios|STAYCEE PEARL dance project (PAS|SPdp) exists to interpret and mirror culture and community through dance and dance centered multi-media experiences. With diverse casting and programing, PAS|SPdp explores innovative conceptual possibilities while participating in meaningful collaboration with artists, educators, musicians, choreographers, and activists.
UpTo is a pop-up creative firm, helping neighborhood businesses by raising the awareness of good design & writing services. Small business owners & entrepreneurs benefit from high design & quality communications services, sparking creative change on main streets. Freelance designers, writers & new media specialists are encouraged to apply & participate in upcoming UpTo events.
UpTo intentionally leverages the power of creativity to serve a community’s interest while driving an agenda for social change & transformation in a way that also builds a quality of place. Business owners need quality artistic, marketing & design services. UpTo staff are experienced designers, communicators & marketers. Together we are re-imagining main street. Learn more about upcoming events & services from UpTo.
The Storyburgh is a not for profit community storytelling platform that seeks to foster discussion and engage the community with under-reported, under-told stories including topics involving humanities such as in social justice, arts & culture, innovation, education/academia and marginalized demographics.
The Storyburgh is open to both professional and citizen journalists through a collaborative platform for photographers, writers, and other visual storytellers to document local stories. The stories are then: 1. Used to promote variety of discussions with the community and 2. Further utilized by other organizations to enhance their missions or messages to the communities.
The South Hilltop Men’s Group is a organization on a mission to reclaim our streets, restore our community pride and repair the damage that was done by years of disinvestment and neglect. We seek to provide healthy alternatives to the destructive behaviors that harm the community. Our approach to healing the neighborhoods is through educational, spiritual, and economic empowerment. We provide programming that encourages responsible entrepreneurism, workforce development, and case management support with a focus on building community. The South Hilltop Men’s Group provides opportunities for training, certification, field experience, and living wage employment through community partners such as Construction Junction and Hilltop Rising. They are the lead developer in the Beltzhoover Institute for Arts & Sciences renovation project.
Jmar Bey of South Hilltop Men’s Group (2020 Vibrancy Award Winner) shares thoughts on what opportunity means, where he sees vibrancy in the community, and what makes him hopeful about the future:
Partnering with New Sun Rising on the Allentown Equity Cafe series promoting conversations to build community:
Learn about Pittsburgh’s Hilltop Revival including South Hilltop Men’s Group in this Postindustrial article.
Founded by Mara Nadolski in 2013, Pittsburgh in the Round is “a directory of every single venue & company and a calendar of every theater, dance & opera event happening.”
But it’s not just lists & links. Latest PITR blog posts include thorough coverage of this year’s Pittsburgh Fringe Festival, play reviews (The Flick at the Pittsburgh Playhouse, Laws of Attraction by Attack Theatre), and a multi-part mini-series “on why Pittsburgh artists lose their heads over Shakespeare’s works.”
Nadolski had covered the Fringe in previous years & already knew Dan Stiker, NSR’s Director of Fiscal Sponsorship & ArtsMODE. ArtsMODE presented an opportunity to learn how to make PITR sustainable. “I definitely didn’t know how to do it myself,” she says. “I’ve learned a ton about how a business or nonprofit runs. This is by far the most beneficial thing I’ve gotten myself into!”
With its extensive directories, all-inclusive event calendar, and articles & reviews on current local theater events, Pittsburgh in the Round is already… well-rounded. Next steps include fiscal sponsorship and expanding the site to include advertising.
“In the long run I’d love to be an artistic director of a small experimental theater company,” Nadolski says. “But before [that I’ll] try and bring together the city’s theater community through Pittsburgh in the Round.”
Pretty Up Beechview is a community group dedicated to maintaining and beautifying the neighborhood of Beechview through:
The neighborhood of Beechview has weathered a generation of real estate neglect, especially along its business corridor in vacant lots and untended public spaces. As new Pittsburghers and longtime residents work toward plans for Beechview’s future, control of blight is crucial to the growth of the neighborhood.
Through our efforts and in partnership with other community organizations, it is our goal to create a sense of neighborhood environmental stewardship for all Beechview residents.
As our projects and membership grow, grant funding and individual donations will go a long way in securing supplies for each project. And more importantly, we’ll be able to do larger projects that promote our mission to increase community involvement that makes for a cleaner and greener Beechview. Examples of our growth include PUB acting as stewards of the Beechview Community Garden and the conversion of a blighted, vacant lot on Beechview Ave, part of the main business corridor, into a public garden park.
You can find out more about PUB through our website (below) or Facebook page!