Actually, they were here, but now they are there. 10,000 brochures have been distributed to the Virginia Visitor Information Centers and to the Virginia Designated Main Street communities. The brochure is designed to highlight the histoic, cultural, recreational and gastronomic opportunities available on Main Street. You can print your own copy here.
Strategic thinking, volunteer resource management and managing your financial picture are all challenges of running a successful nonprofit organization. They’re also titles of courses offered through Virginia Commonwealth University’s Nonprofit Learning Point (NLP) educational program. In 2009 the program celebrates 13 years of empowering organizations to become more effective and efficient in achieving their goals. … More Achieve your nonprofit mission
The Spring 2009 Virginia Main Street Monitor is now available in its new form, an electronic technical brief. The new edition offers best practices for structuring effective promotional campaigns, culled from our Virginia Main Street network. The brief includes tips on partnering, constructing a press release, and debriefing the event. The Monitor‘s new electronic form reduces costs … More Spring 2009 Virginia Main Street Monitor now available
Norm Brodsky is a writer for Inc. Magazine. He is the co-writer of: The Knack: How Street Smart Entrepreneurs Learn to Handle Whatever Comes Up. He also has started six businesses. Lets call him an entrepreneur. In the April issue of Inc, Brodsky writes in his Street Smarts Column about lessons to use when your original plan goes … More Making lemonade
For a little fun, check out Inc. Magazine’s online slide show on the top 30 fictional entrepreneurs from TV, film and books. I missed a few of these, but I’d argue that Willie Wonka is in the top three, rather than number six. He knew his market, had great promotions, excellent staff management skills, pursued quality control … More A little entrepreneurial fun
The Sunday, April 5 edition of the Richmond Times-Dispatch had several articles of note about Virginia Main Street communities. First was an article about Abingdon’s latest downtown promotion, then an article about Page County’s (including Luray) attempt to be designated as the “Cabin Capital of Virginia.” Then yet another article, this one talking about the … More Virginia’s Main Street in the news
You’ve spent years building your professional reputation and protecting your organization’s good name, but in today’s interconnected, information-rich world it’s easier than ever for the actions of others to damage the goodwill you’ve established. Networking is a basic responsibility of business owners and organizations serving them. We network to keep abreast of best practices, to … More Trading Faces: Building and caring for your online reputation
Workplans are hard. The good ones take time and thought. However, they are important to make sure that your downtown revitalization efforts stay on track and are a great way to tally your progress. There is usually a strong correlation between the success of any downtown’s revitalization and the community’s ability to create…and follow…a good workplan. How well … More Workplans
Once you have designed and launched your Web site, your next task is to get it noticed. One of the top ways to do this is to make sure you show up in relevant Web searches. If you are selling your charming and thriving business district, you will want to be sure that your Web … More Get noticed
While the Virginia Main Street staff was unable to travel to Chicago for the 2009 National Main Streets Conference, Becoming Main Street 2.0, Jessie Chase from Harrisonburg was able to attend and reported back that it was fun, interesting and worthwhile. We returned from the Chicago National Main Street conference on Wednesday evening tired and … More Report from the Main Street 2.0 conference
Virginia Main Street 