DMC BEGINS NEW SPONSORSHIP WITH YOUR TOWN ALABAMA

The DMC is pleased to announce the beginning of a new sponsorship of Your Town Alabama’s annual workshop. Launched in 1998, Your Town hosts an annual workshop that provides local leaders with critical tools for organizing, recruiting, and strategically developing community and economic development projects. The process emphasizes asset-based design, weighing the natural, cultural, and historical resources of a place throughout the process.

Participants include architects, community planners, elected officials, scholars, and artists, all of whom are placed into carefully curated groups. Each group is then given the same set of tasks built around the footprint of an unnamed Alabama town. Since its inception, more than 1,100 people have participated in the workshop. This diverse group of professionals come from nearly 250 towns and communities, representing all 67 Alabama counties.

The DMC is pleased to announce a new network-level sponsorship of Your Town Alabama. Beginning in 2027, the DMC will offer two annual scholarships for emerging young professionals in the civic-engagement space to attend the workshop. Selection criteria will be announced later this year. Special consideration will be given to alumni of the DMC’s Jean O’Conner-Snyder Internship Program and those otherwise associated with the work of the organization.

“This sponsorship solidifies a longstanding relationship between these two Alabama nonprofits,” said DMC Executive Director Scotty Kirkland. “All current members of the DMC staff, and several members of our Board, are proud Your Town alums. The DMC is honored to ensure that more Alabamians committed to improving civic life can obtain the Your Town experience, growing their skills in collaborative community building and asset-based design.”