Investing in Arts & Culture to Build Community

On April 26, Penn IUR and The Reinvestment Fund hosted the fourth annual Jeremy Nowak Memorial Lecture. Every year, this event highlights Jeremy Nowak's enduring work to integrate public, private, and nonprofit expertise to achieve collective urban prosperity and gives students and professionals the opportunity to hear from experts on topics that manifest the connections between the academic and the applied aspects of urban development, a combination that Jeremy exemplified.

This year’s discussion focused on investing arts and culture in building community. In a conversation that embodied Jeremy’s spirited style, participants debated the ways in which communities shape arts and culture, and arts and culture shape communities. Repeatedly returning to the topics of gentrification and equity, participants sought to identify ways to build community without creating physical, financial, or cultural displacement.

Jeremy Nowak—who started his career as a community organizer—was always looking for projects that facilitated community engagement, said Don Hinkle-Brown, President and CEO, The Reinvestment Fund. “For him, arts was about creating value in a community and about creating infrastructure that enriched community connections,” he added.

Event participants included Jamie Bennett, Former Executive Director, ArtPlace America; Marland Buckner, Co-Founder and Principal, MB2 Solutions; Hinkle-Brown; and Judilee Reed, President/CEO, United States Artists.