Local Success Stories Deserve National Spotlight. Here’s Your Town’s Chance!
A lively street scene from our 2023 Strongest Town Contest winner: Brattleboro, VT.
Your city deserves to be in the spotlight. Yet so often these days, we miss out on the local success stories, the wins, and the heroes, because everyone’s caught up in the national news cycle. It’s hard to keep up the momentum of the great work your community is doing when your efforts aren’t being celebrated.
Well, this is your moment to turn that around. At Strong Towns, we want to use our platform—a website reaching millions of people every year; a YouTube channel with over 100,000 subscribers; and a proven track record of highlighting local success stories for over a decade—as a megaphone to celebrate your city.
We do that through our annual Strongest Town Contest. Each year, we honor one city with an in-depth profile (and we get to feature 16 amazing communities along the way, too). With international recognition, you're not just going to build a stronger town; you're going to inspire a bottom-up revolution for safe, vibrant, and financially resilient communities.
So how does this contest work, what’s at stake, and how can you nominate your town? I’ve been helping run this contest since its inception nine years ago and I want to assist you in preparing your best possible application. Don’t worry, we’re not looking for the perfect town; rather, we’re interested in highlighting places that are transforming from the bottom-up. Think that’s your city? Read on.
How the Contest Works (New and Improved for 2024!)
It’s March Madness and that means a bracket-style contest throughout the month of March, but this year, it comes with a twist. We’ll of course have the usual Sweet 16 towns facing off in pairs, with voting from the public and our members to determine the winner of each match up. Then we’ll whittle it down to an Elite Eight, a Final Four, and a Championship round on April with a live video conversation between our final contestants. (Check out the full contest calendar here.)
However, before we start things off with the Sweet 16, we’re adding a new “Meet the Contestants” round, in which we match up four groups of the initial 16 competitors into categories based on their greatest strengths (think, “best approach to incremental housing development,” “safest streets,” etc.), and give you the chance to vote among those match-ups and crown four introductory winners in their respective categories. Then everyone will move onto the regular Sweet 16 elimination round.
Of course, before all that begins, you need to nominate your town by February 18 and be selected into the initial 16 competitors. A team of Strong Towns staff will review all the applications and select the best 16 to compete, beginning March 4.
Applications are due February 18.
What’s at Stake: The Prizes
Should your town win against 15 other contenders and receive the award of 2024 Strongest Town, not only will you get to brag about that forever, you’ll also get:
Two free tickets to the Strong Towns National Gathering in Cincinnati, May 14–15, with transportation and hotel costs covered for two representatives from your town. At the Gathering, you’ll be brought up on stage to receive your winner certificate/plaque.
A short documentary film made by Strong Towns video creator, Mike Pasternock, and shared on our 100,000+ subscriber YouTube channel. (Check out last year’s amazing video about Brattleboro, Vermont, to see what might be ahead for your city, should you win.)
Articles and social media posts about your town throughout 2024.
Recognition in local and national press.
Tips and Tricks to Application Success
By joining this contest, you’re putting your city on the path toward success, inspiring positive change in your community and across the continent. Here are four tips to clinching that initial spot in the Sweet 16…and hopefully making it all the way to our championship round.
Work with a team. A great Strongest Town Contest Nomination Team will be made up of 2–5 people from different backgrounds, interests, and skill sets. A new parent. A city planner. A business owner. A small-scale developer... Build your team with a range of experiences and expertise, and your nomination will really stand out. Now, we have had great nominations from teams of 10, and great nominations from one passionate citizen. So don't take these as hard and fast rules, just a suggestion.
Show us the compelling stories from your city. This contest will put your community on an international stage, and the stories (and photos) you share will help voters from around the world understand why you deserve their support. So, as you answer the application questions and submit photos of your place, think about what makes your town uniquely strong and the moments from the past year (or decade) that epitomize that for everyone in your city. Your town doesn’t need to be perfect, but we want to see the evidence that you’re trying to become more financially resilient as a community. We’d rather hear about the city-wide block party where neighbors and leaders got to meet one another, or the kids who can safely walk to school now that local streets have been redesigned for safety, than read about the 10 priorities listed in your comprehensive plan document.
Understand what makes a town strong. Here are a few key things that strong towns have in common: They work toward financial resilience. They keep their promises to residents. They prioritize small bets over big projects. They adapt to feedback, choosing resiliency over efficiency. They conduct as much of life as possible at the human scale. Most of all, a strong town is one in which residents work together to achieve these goals.
Join our information webinar on January 30. Have questions about the nomination process or the contest? We're hosting a Q&A session Tuesday, January 30, at 12 p.m. CT. Sign up to attend the session here. Strong Towns staff will be joined by a representative from last year’s winning town, Brattleboro, Vermont, to answer your questions. Register to submit your question, and either join us for the live session or, if you're unable to attend, we'll email you a summary of the answers afterward.
So what are you waiting for? Get your team together and apply today for the 2024 Strongest Town contest. Applications are due February 18.
Questions? Feel free to email me at rachel@strongtowns.org.
Rachel Quednau serves as Program Director at Strong Towns. Trained in dialogue facilitation and mediation, she is devoted to building understanding across lines of difference. Previously, Rachel worked for several organizations fighting to end homelessness and promote safe, affordable housing at the federal and local levels. Rachel also served as Content Manager for Strong Towns from 2015-2018. A native Minnesotan and honorary Wisconsinite, Rachel received a Masters in Religion, Ethics, and Politics from Harvard Divinity School and a Certificate in Conflict Transformation from the Boston Theological Interreligious Consortium, both in 2020. She currently lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with her husband and young son. One of her favorite ways to get to know a new city is by going for a walk in it.