Scholarships and Partnerships: How to Fund Your Trip to Missouri’s Premier Downtown Revitalization Conference
May 30, 2025 | Logan Breer
Missouri’s Premier Downtown Revitalization Conference is Missouri Main Street Connection’s (MMSC) biggest Main Street training spanning three days with 20+ sessions and 350+ attendees. A training at this level requires an investment when you consider hotel, travel, and conference registration costs. For communities of all sizes, attending Missouri’s Premier Downtown Revitalization Conference is a huge return on investment as their volunteers and staff bring back ideas from conference conversations that impact all aspects of their organizations. Main Street programs can maximize their budget by utilizing scholarships and partnerships to send board members, committee members, and staff to the state conference in order to increase their ability to fulfill the Main Street’s goal.
One-way communities can receive assistance for attending Missouri’s Premier Downtown Revitalization Conference is through MMSC and organizations within their community. MMSC provides a variety of annual scholarships to Accredited, Associate, and selected Affiliate Missouri Main Street programs that enable them to invest in the growth and education of their community stakeholders by sending them to Missouri’s Premier Downtown Revitalization. This is made possible through our work with outstanding partners who share our mission to cultivate thriving communities in Missouri including the State of Missouri and USDA Rural Community Development Initiative grant.
For funding within a community, Main Street programs can partner with organizations and for funding to cover conference registration costs, sometimes in surprising places. Organizations that have overlapping goals with Main Street for advancing economic development or desire to support leadership development are great places to ask for support that include local service clubs such as Rotary, Lions, and Kiwanis clubs; local banks; utility companies; or Chambers of Commerce. Though it can be daunting, the first and easiest step is reaching out to establish a connection with these organizations. MMSC’s State Director Gayla Roten, who was the local director of the Branson Main Street program before becoming the State Director of MMSC, has some words of encouragement for you when thinking about making an ask, “We don’t have, because we don’t ask”.
Scholarships and partnerships open a variety of options for your local Main Street program to receive funding for investing in your community stakeholders and community’s vibrancy through attending the state conference. When making the ask do so with confidence and the right resources to show the impact of your organization and how the education from the state conference will empower bigger local impacts on economic vitality, vibrance, and community connectivity. MMSC has created a sample letter and flyer that you can use to start these conversations with potential partners in your community. We recommend putting together your own material such as an annual report to showcase the work you do locally.
We have one last tip for you, planning in advance lets you look for discounts. Luckily our Early Bird conference rates don’t expire until June 30th at 11:59 pm so you have time to take advantage of our discount!
1 thought on “May 30, 2025 – Scholarships and Partnerships: How to Fund Your Trip to Missouri’s Premier Downtown Revitalization Conference”
Wow, these are great ideas! Thanks for sharing with our communities.
Comments are closed.