What does it take to turn a community’s vision into lasting change?
For The Vision is Yours 2027, we’re seeking speakers and facilitators with practical tools, fresh perspectives, and real-world experience to share.
We welcome proposals for 60-minute Workshops and Panels exploring the themes below. We want to hear what you’ve learned, what you’re trying, and what others can take away from your place-based work.
We’re especially interested in sessions that bring different disciplines together, surface lessons from work on the ground, and give participants ideas they can put into practice in their own communities.
Proposals Due: December 5, 2026, 11:59pm
Conference Themes
Investing in Whole Blocks and Existing Communities
How can investment strengthen neighborhoods while ensuring current residents shape and benefit from change? We’re interested in approaches that connect housing, public space, community-led plans, neighborhood leadership, and investment to support change at the scale of a block or neighborhood.
Arts and Culture as Civic Infrastructure
How can arts and culture shape the places we share, sustain community identity, and turn creative visions into reality? Share examples of artists and communities working across sectors to navigate planning, permitting, funding, and partnerships, or to make space for cultural expression and memory in the built environment.
Maintenance and Stewardship
What does it take to care for places over time? We’re looking for practical approaches to the long-term care of public spaces and community assets, from securing resources and building local capacity to sharing responsibility and strengthening relationships among residents, organizations, property owners, and public agencies.
Have another idea? We want to hear it.
These themes are a starting point, not a limit. We welcome proposals on the many things that help communities thrive, including food access and local foodways, creative expression, play, safety, greening, gathering spaces, mobility, and more. If your work brings people together around a shared vision for their community, we’d love to hear about it.
Session Formats
Workshops | 60 minutes
Interactive, hands-on sessions for up to 40 participants. Share a practical tool, skill, resource, or approach that participants can adapt to their own work. We’re interested in formats that invite people to practice, experiment, and learn from one another.
Examples: Community engagement strategies, storytelling, creative practices, community organizing, navigating public processes, and building cross-sector partnerships.
Panels | 60 minutes
Conversations that bring together different disciplines, perspectives, or project experiences to explore a shared challenge or opportunity. We encourage interdisciplinary collaboration and diverse representation among panelists. Proposals should include time for audience Q&A, with a maximum of four speakers, including the moderator.
Who Should Apply?
Placemaking and placekeeping take many forms, and we want to hear from the people doing the work. We welcome proposals from community organizers, planners, designers, artists, youth leaders, neighborhood residents, public officials, nonprofit partners, and others working to make communities stronger.
Whether you’re sharing a proven approach, lessons from a project that didn’t go as planned, or a new idea worth exploring, bring your perspective to the conversation.
Speakers receive:
All speakers will be notified of selection prior to the early registration deadline.
Questions?
Reach out to Nicole Ringel at nringel@ndc-md.org
How to Submit a Proposal
Ready to share your work? Start by reviewing the application preview for your session format so you know what questions to expect:
Tips for Applying
When you’re ready, complete the online application here. Please note that the Typeform application does not save your progress if you leave before submitting. We recommend reviewing the questions in advance and submitting your proposal in one sitting.
Application Office Hours
Pop in anytime to ask a question about your session proposal or say hello to our conference planning team.
About the Conference
The Vision is Yours is the Neighborhood Design Center’s annual placemaking and placekeeping conference. This multi-day gathering convenes urban planners, community leaders, designers, artists, and public officials to explore innovative approaches to reimagining our public spaces, build community power, and strengthen the ecosystems that support neighborhood change.
Great neighborhoods are shaped by more than buildings and public spaces. They are sustained by the people, relationships, institutions, and investments that give places their character and communities the capacity to thrive.
Through candid conversations, practical learning, and place-based experiences, The Vision is Yours explores what it takes to move from planning to implementation—and how coordinated action across sectors can create greater impact than any single project or organization could achieve alone.