Through engagement with non-profits, local planning agencies, and local residents, the Orton Family Foundation helps small cities and towns navigate growth and change while enhancing their heart and soul.
The Orton Family Foundation, based in Middlebury, Vermont, and Denver, Colorado, seeks to help small cities and towns discover and describe their heart and soul—the collective attributes that make communities unique—and build on those attributes in planning toward a vibrant, enduring future. The Foundation also focuses on innovations and transformations within the land use planning system as a pathway to vibrant and sustainable communities.
The Foundation is currently working on specific projects to help communities identify and plan for their heart and soul. These comprehensive community planning projects are located in Colorado, Maine, Rhode Island, Vermont, Connecticut and Idaho, and, depending on needs and interests identified by the towns, focus on everything from revitalizing town centers to conserving and protecting historical characteristics to managing growth. Orton also inspired the CommunityMatters initiative and annual conference, showcasing communities, practitioners, organizations, and tools relating to important planning challenges and solutions.
The Foundation's project work consists of partnering with organizations and communities to help them engaging their citizens, identify common values, and improve their planning processes. The Foundation often provides innovative tools for these projects (including keypad polling, the Chip Game, interactive mapping, CommunityViz, and community websites) and in helping to share the lessons of these projects and communities afterward.
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