Mission
Arts Build Communities helps NJ's communities and arts-related organizations make better and more cost-effective decisions about community and economic development related to creative industries utilizing the following tools:

Research- New Jersey Creative Vitality Index

The New Jersey Creative Vitality Index (CVI) measures and assesses creative industries' trends and conditions as well as identifies model practices in New Jersey's 21 counties. CVI provides benchmarks for the arts and creative economies for the purpose of policy making and planning. The focus of the index is to provide vital data and analyses to foster connection to the arts, community and economic development. CVI demonstrates the value of creative industries to New Jersey's communities.

Continuing Education

ABC provides training and certification to create experts who can work to enhance the social and economic well-being through creative placemaking.

Community Coaching

ABC marshals the resources and expertise of the Bloustein School to help communities build their capacity to make more cost-effective choices for building, growing and sustaining creative communities and creative economies.

Knowledge Center

As supplement and enhancement to the NJ-CVI, ABC is developing an online knowledge center and toolkit to provide encyclopedic knowledge on strategies for creative placemaking.  Through such publications as ABC NJ-ArtiFacts and by advising decisionmakers, we also promote effective and innovative approaches to creative placemaking.

History 
In July 2008, Arts Build Communities, then a project of the Professional Development Institute, which is part of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, received an award of $20,000 from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts to begin the project.  Later, ABC received support from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the Association of County Cultural and Heritage Agencies, Middlesex County Cultural and Heritage Commission.  In 2010, Arts Build Communities was named a co-sponsored project of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
Since that time, Arts Build Communities has contributed to the thinking and strategies of hundreds of artists, cultural professionals, elected and appointed officials, economic development professionals and urban planners in and around New Jersey.

Since 2010, we have published and updated the New Jersey Creative Vitality Index. More than a collection of facts about the state’s growing creative sector, the NJ-CVI provides practical advice to decisionmakers and explores a key question for creative placemaking – Why are some communities so much more successful at it than others?

That year, we also launched ABC NJ-ArtiFacts. It is the only blog in New Jersey focused on the interconnection of arts, community development and economic development.

In 2011, ABC held its first Creative Placemaking conference, attracting more than 120 people from around the New Jersey region.  Participants explored strategies for building, growing and sustaining creative communities.  Several participants later said the conference was the first time they were able to sit down and talk about creative placemaking issues with other people from outside their professional world. 

Also in 2011, ABC launched the Community Coaching initiative, with a team from Perth Amboy as the first client.  Through a combination of leadership and performance coaching, the Community Coaching initiative helps diverse teams from municipalities explore and address creative placemaking issues.  These issues include cultural planning, cultural tourism, place marketing, and bridging cultural divides through the arts.

ABC, along with its partner, The Leading Institute, is providing technical assistance and applied research services to create a cultural tourism plan in Trenton, NJ.  The work is being conducted on behalf of the Trenton Downtown Association.   Previously, ABC staff had worked on a cultural plan for downtown Cranford, NJ, and a set of marketing strategies for Essex County, NJ.

Since the earliest days of ABC, the center’s staff and leadership have provided thought leadership to elected and appointed officials, artists and cultural professionals, and urban planners and economic development professionals.  These have taken place in large conference rooms and one-to-one conversations, in presentations and while collaborating on projects.

All our work is designed to build knowledge and shape beliefs, leading to lasting solutions.