2025 Main Street Now Conference

New Sessions & Revamped Favorites

Whether Main Street Now 2025 will be your first or fifteenth conference, make sure to take note of these exciting sessions designed to enhance your experience and equip you with tangible takeaways, inspiration, and peer connections to take your organization’s Main Street efforts to the next level.

For folks arriving on Sunday, check out Discover Main Street America: Who We Are and How to Connect, an informal and interactive session where you can meet the MSA team, learn about our areas of focus, and find out ways to stay engaged, before joining us for the Welcome Reception.

This year's Opening Plenary on Monday morning will be held at the magnificent Marian Anderson Hall in the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts—meet up with us there to get energized for sessions that begin later that afternoon.

Day two features an incredible Tuesday Main Idea—Why Trust Matters on Main Street hosted by a panel of local leaders and Frederick Riley, Executive Director at The Aspen Institute’s Weave: The Social Fabric Project—Main Street 101 crash courses, and three special Networking & Connecting sessions offering new dynamic peer-to-peer learning and community-building opportunities dedicated to exploring timely topics impacting every Main Street leader.

The third and final day begins with the return of the Wednesday Main Idea, where interaction meets inspiration at How to Dream, Play, and Build with James Rojas and John Kamp. Check out additional Main Street 101 crash courses and more than two dozen sessions before joining us for a jubilant Closing Celebration filled with community, joy, and music, and the Big Bash at FDR Park.

Introducing: Learning Tracks

New this year is the debut of attendee-focused tracks, tailored learning paths that we’ve designed to help you dive deep into sessions most relevant to your role at your organization and within the Main Street Movement. With a couple sessions per day, each track offers a curated experience of suggested content ideal for you, while also providing you with the flexibility to explore the full range of topics that Main Street Now 2025 has to offer:

Experienced Director — Find sessions focused on advanced strategies, leadership insights, and innovative approaches to take your Main Street program to the next level, including:

• Data’s Not a Dirty Word — Solutions for Stewardship, Stories, and Succession Planning
• Tune Up Your Board
• Revitalized and Struggling — Lessons from Mature Main Streets
• Main Street Directors Roundtable
• A Conversation with Mary Means: Trust, Vulnerability, and the Heart of Main Street
• Invest in Yourself: A Community Guide to Locally Owned Redevelopment

New Director — Designed for early-career professionals, this track offers foundational knowledge, practical tools, and key resources to confidently begin your Main Street leadership journey. Sessions in this track include:

• Be a Productivity Powerhouse: Integrating Self-Care with Personal Planning
• So, You're the New Main Street Director: Now What?
• Sowing the Seeds of Service: Creating Committed Volunteers for Life
• Your Brand: It's More Than a Logo
• Making the Case for Your Program's Budget
• The Point Live: Expanding Collaborative Problem-Solving at Main Street Now 2025
• Discover Main Street America: Who We Are and How to Connect

Board Member — Learn how to maximize your impact as a board member with sessions dedicated to governance, strategic planning, and collaboration with program staff. If you’re a board member of a Main Street organization, consider checking out these sessions:

• Diverse Boards, Strong Communities: Building Effective Leadership
• The Work is Never Done — Planning Forward for Sustainable Long-Term Success
• Build Long-Term Success with Main Street Succession Planning
• Accreditation: Improve your Evaluation Scores
• Board Member Roundtable: Let's Play Family Feud

Civic Leader — This track empowers civic leaders to champion Main Street initiatives in your community through sessions on partnerships, advocacy, and local policy alignment. Sessions in the Civic Leader track include:

• Active Transportation Offers Benefits For All — Even Skeptics
• Surprising Population Trends You Should Know and What it Means for Main Street
• Empowering Communities Through a Targeted Block Program
• Tapping Federal Partnerships to Strengthen Local Economies
• Main Streets as Connectors: Using Policy and the Main Street Approach to Combat Social Isolation
• Community Reinvestment Act: Basics to Help You Understand Bankers

Coordinating Program — With these sessions, explore strategies for managing statewide or regional Main Street programs, fostering collaboration among your local communities, and scaling the impact of the Main Street Approach:

• Spark Alabama: From Earmark to Entrepreneurial Grants
• Collaborative Organizational Models for Main Streets
• Plugging the Main Street Brain Drain
• Impacts of the BOOMS Tracker: Looking Back and Ahead
• Likes, Dislikes, and Trends in Transformation Strategies
• Strengthening Together: Shared Strategies for Disaster Preparedness

This is just a taste of the learning and network-building opportunities that you’ll find at Main Street Now 2025. Explore the full schedule and begin planning your dream agenda today! >

Registration for Main Street Now 2025 is open. Member discounts and special rates for civic leaders are available. Register by March 31 to secure your spot with the regular rate and save up to $210!