Future of Downtown Awards

Every year, the Downtown Austin Alliance recognizes dedicated people who make significant contributions or outstanding improvements to our downtown community at our annual Future of Downtown event.

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Congratulations to our 2024 Award Winners

Meredith Powell Award for Community Culture

Congratulations to Art from the Streets for receiving the second annual Meredith Powell Award for Community Culture. This award is presented annually to someone who exhibits the same commitment Meredith shows to elevating community voices through art.

Downtown Vision Award

Congratulations to St. David’s Episcopal Church for receiving our first annual Downtown Vision Award. This award recognizes dedicated people who make significant contributions or outstanding improvements to our downtown community.

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Award Categories

Meredith Powell Award for Community Culture

This annual award is given to a champion for authentic and inclusive arts, culture, and sense of place in downtown.

The first Meredith Powell Award for Community Culture was awarded in 2023 to Meredith Powell, who has been a tireless advocate of the power of arts and culture to strengthen community and place. Meredith is a visionary in the arts community, as the former executive director of Art Alliance and founder of Public City. By elevating community voices and bringing life to underutilized spaces through art and activation, Meredith’s work has significantly contributed to downtown’s vibrancy for over 20 years.  

Downtown Vision Award

This new to 2024 award will be given to a person, place, project or idea that has a significant impact on the community vision for downtown. The Downtown Vision includes four guiding pillars -Thriving Center, Welcoming Places, Growing Neighborhoods and Leading Mobility- and strives to ensure that downtown is a place that is loved by all Austinites. Transformative by nature, the Downtown Vision awardee will overtly demonstrate our core values of inclusion, impact and collaboration.

 

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Submission Information

Check back in January 2025 for announcements on the next Future of Downtown award cycle.

The 2024 award nomination process will open on January 17, 2024 at 8:00am. The form will close on February 14, 2024 at 5pm. There is no cost to nominate someone. Nominees should be in alignment with the intent of the awards as described above and should have a relationship to downtown (for example, the project, the work or the impact should be in downtown). Only one award will be given per category. Award winners will be recognized at the Downtown Austin Alliance Future of Downtown event May 15, 2024 and may also be celebrated in a video feature.  

Submitters will be asked to complete a short application including the following:  

• Submitter name, contact information and relationship to nominee. 
• Name of nominee or project and contact information.  
• Award Category: Community Culture or Downtown Vision. 
• Affiliation or name of the group the nominee works for now or in the past. 
• Location where nominee currently resides. 
• Why your nominee deserves to be given the Award based on the award criteria. Include detailed information about their contributions, past achievements and/or current projects, highlighting the relationship to downtown Austin.*
• Names and affiliations of 2-5 references we can speak with that can provide testimony, quotes and other content for video purposes. 
• Photos can be attached but are not required.

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Judges

Our outstanding panel of judges includes the following visionaries working in their own ways to make Downtown Austin the downtown you will always love:

• Matt Curtis
• Meredith Powell
• Teresa Alvarez
• Jehmu Greene
• Amy Mok Wong

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