Love Indy is charged with creating a city that welcomes, engages, and inspires. A project birthed out of Plan 2020 (Indy’s Bicentennial Agenda), this movement sparked attention well beyond its initial intent. Malina Simone was hired to provide an emotional component to city planning by acting as project manager to oversee a committee, manage social media and develop ideas around increasing the loyalty between residents and their city. What started as a planning mechanism quickly developed into a nationally recognized movement engaging more than 50,000 users through #LoveIndy.
Click here for images of people loving Indy via a temporary, roving installation by Visit Indy, https://www.visitindy.com/indianapolis-ndy.
In celebration of The Indianapolis Foundation’s 100th anniversary, the Central Indiana Community Foundation is creating two special funds modeled on Ben Franklin’s endowment. Both are designed to harness the power of compound interest in order to help our community for many years to come. Malina Simone was hired to be the creative producer of the Ben Franklin Funds and the 100 Dinners which meant raising $1,000 from 100 residents and $100 from 1,000 residents to become $2 Million over 100 years. Malina Simone also handles the coordination and organizing of 100 dinners for all 1,100 donors over two very fun and community engaging summer evenings.
Click here for more information on the Ben Franklin Funds. https://www.bein2016.org/bff/
In June 2016, IndyGo launched the Julia M. Carson Transit Center as the downtown hub for public transit. Malina Simone was hired to orchestrate the planning and logistics of the two-week period leading up to the launch. This included a press day, Hackathon with Indy Chamber, Family Day for IndyGo employees, Downtown Indy Panel Discussion, Opening Day (press preview, VIP tours, ribbon cutting, team reception) and a “meet your new neighbor” luncheon for downtown businesses and residents.
In addition to the launch events, we curated a set of artists to perform at the transit center throughout opening week. From emotional spoken word artists, to the beautiful sounds of a harpist, to calming acoustic performances… the positive energy along the transit center boardwalk was infectious that week.
For more information on the Julia M. Carson Transit Center, visit: http://www.indygo.net/how-to-ride/transitcenter/
Malina Simone is thrilled to have won 2013 IndyHub’s Face Your City 5x5 Competition with our project, I am an Artist. In its simplest form, it’s a public art exhibition. We photographed 52 local, mostly colorful and alternative artists. Take that to mean DJ’s, chef’s, tattoo artists and the like. We then printed them on huge sheets of vinyl and installed them on the exterior of window spaces between 30th and MLK to South Street and Delaware to 30th and Post. To keep the project alive, all 52 photographs live on the backs of playing cards and were sold as a deck at Silver in the City on Mass Ave (update: all decks are SOLD OUT!!). Today, one of the images is still installed at the southwest corner of 30th and College at the old Frog’s Record Store.
View all of the images and learn more about the artists here. http://www.ourmosaiccity.com/#!large-grid/c1vu1
People get weird around words like diversity, equality, blackness and race. We love those words. In 2015 as part of the Spirit and Place Festival, we began hosting conversations with IndyHub to toss around those words even more. More than 150 people have joined our intentionally awkward sessions to learn about privilege and to learn about each other. Be on the lookout for more awkward talks that encourage familiarity and discourage fear.
Red, Bike and Green (www.redbikeandgreen.org) is an initiative that began in Oakland to build communities through biking. Malina Simone, with the help of Cheria Caldwell and Danicia Malone, chartered an Indianapolis chapter of RBG to be a resource and fun way to reach out to the African American community about biking, sustainability and economic development. Locals host a route each month.
Find us on IG at @RBGIndy.
Indy based filmmaker Kurt Nettleton created this video for my talk on "the new geography of jobs" for a CEO's for Cities presentation. Lee Fisher calls it "the most phenomenal resume I've seen."
Waterside is a visionary development of the former GM Stamping Plant in downtown Indy. This 103-acre site is known as the largest redevelopment project in the city’s last century. I am proud to have led efforts on marketing, storytelling and community engagement for this project. Find out more at @hellowaterside.