Tools and resources

This toolkit contains information that can guide your Main Street organization’s efforts for volunteer management in five key areas: identifying volunteers, recruiting volunteers, orienting volunteers, monitoring volunteer activity and retaining volunteers.

A roadmap and tools to help you strategize and develop your local Main Street COVID-19 Economic Recovery Action Plan.

Access the library for how-to videos to help market your business, set-up your online store, utilize social media, and operate a clean and safe business in the COVID-19 era and beyond.

The toolkit includes a safety checklist, branding graphics, signage and templates to customize with your own logo.

Click here to download the toolkit as a PDF

Click here to access the Dropbox folder with editable design files

Click to view the Facebook Live recording of the June 10, 2020 webinar for Main Street Programs and Downtown Management Organizations.

Click to view the Facebook Live recording of the  June 11, 2020 webinar on reopening strategies for small businesses.

A list of resources and information for Michigan businesses during the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) outbreak compiled by Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC). MEDC will continue to update this page as more resources become available. If you have any questions or wish to speak to MEDC directly, please call 888.522.0103.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s MI Safe Start Plan outlines how we will begin to re-engage while continuing to keep our communities safe. Re-engagement will happen in phases. Those businesses that are necessary to protect and sustain life are already open. As we move into lower-risk phases, additional business categories will re-open and the restrictions on public gatherings and social interactions will ease.

The Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration (MIOSHA) within the Dept. of Labor and Economic Opportunity (LEO) launched this new online COVID-19 Workplace Safety site as a one-stop-shop for workplace safety resources as businesses reopen.

This resource from the Small Business Association of Michigan dives into what you need to think about before reopening your business and includes a guide and checklist to help guide you through the creation of a preparedness plan and getting back to work safely.

This guide from the Michigan Retailers Association (MRA) includes checklists by retail sector/activity; and how-to guides to recall employees, conduct employee health screening, utilize the Work Share Program, and reengage customers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued new and updated guidance for where you live, work, learn, pray, and play. Find health considerations and tools; guidance to plan, prepare and respond; and more. 

This proposal from Wayne County (MI) Economic Develpment (WCED) for municipal partners provides data and examples with the goal of providing food establishments and small retailers with opportunities for safe return-to-work environments for them, their employees and their customers.

The City of Southfield’s DRAFT Temporary Approval for Outdoor Dining Spaces and Personal Service Stations is intended to permit restaurants to temporarily expand their dining areas and to permit barbers, hair stylists, and nail technicians to provide personal services outside their establishments. (May 19, 2020)

This toolkit for creating and implementing parklets from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs provides practical guidance to support the development of small-scale parks, called parklets. It’s packed with examples, illustrations, diagrams and more.

This highly visual quick-look plan from the City of Tampa, FL includes examples and diagrams for parklets and temporary use of sidewalks, and requirements for the use of outdoor space. 

This checklist from the National Retail Federation represents guidance from members and subject matter experts, and is intended to highlight key topics to consider as retailers seek to re-open operations.

From Arnett Muldrow & Associates, download this FREE design resources package, complete with editable files and fonts so you can customize the graphics for your community.

The Winter Strategies guide provides communities with ideas to give them a jumpstart on preparing for winter. This guide is an introduction to creative solutions, dialogue with community stakeholders and a foundation for embracing winter as a season of prosperity.

Get the inside take and insights from Leigh Young and Joe Frost on the new MEDC Michigan Main Street Winter Strategies Guide .

Take twelve minutes to check out this quick-strike Winter Strategies video guide produced by Ben Muldrow of Arnett Muldrow & Associates for Proud Places.

Downtown New Jersey is providing a series of virtual opportunities for downtown managers, economic development professionals, and public officials to exchange ideas about best practices related to downtown economic development in light of the COVID-19 crisis.

Check out this outstanding and highly illustrative guide produced by Bench Consulting, the outcome of a design challenge for winter placemaking that sought ideas and designs for innovative, quickly implementable, low cost interventions to drive visitors back to Main Streets to support area restaurants and small businesses.

This atrticle from Max Musicant, Founder and President of The Musicant Group, investigates placemaking and activation strategies to foster commercial and social activity in downtowns and main streets with northern climates during the winter months during the holidays and beyond.