Impact
We assess our impact by gauging how successfully we share ideas, connect and empower leaders, and increase economic opportunity and quality of life, both here in our hometown of Charlottesville and across the country.
Local Economic Impacts.
ANNUAL ATTENDEES:
20,000
ANNUAL ECONOMIC IMPACT
$2.5M
SPEAKERS & PERFORMERS
500+
ANNUAL JOBS SUPPORTED
500
CITIES REPRESENTED
300+
GRANTS & PRIZES AWARDED
$3.2M
“I made a ton of great connections, was sparked to think about things in our town in a new way, and found myself telling everyone back home what an awesome time I had.”
—
Renee Margocee,
Executive Director, Tamarack Foundation for the Arts, Charleston, West Virginia
Increasing economic opportunity.
Tom Tom connects nationwide ecosystem builders, strengthens state and regional economic networks, and accelerates startups. Locally, our annual pitch competitions and showcases level the playing field so small businesses and nonprofits have access to seed funding.
Sample initiatives:
Increasing quality of life.
Cities with a high quality of life offer all residents equal access to health, education, and safety, while providing ways for them to engage creatively, culturally, and recreationally. Our Summit convenes the nation’s experts in these arenas, and our year-round Art and Community initiatives provide ongoing inspiration and connection.
Sample initiatives:
Sharing
peer-scaled ideas.
Roughly 30% of American’s live in smaller and mid-sized cities, yet these leaders do not always have access to peer-scaled solutions to their community’s challenges. Tom Tom provides the critical bridge among local changemakers as well as national institutions in order to share best-practices and exchange solutions.
Sample initiatives:
Measuring our impact.
As we have grown from a Charlottesville-focused community celebration to a national platform for civic innovation, our desire to monitor and assess our impact has grown. Currently, we utilize surveys, focus groups, targeted conversations with participants, and local economic reports from tourism and municipal partners to track impact.
We’re now on an exploratory path to both gather more robust data, and curate and distill the information currently at our disposal. We invite community groups, research experts, and graduate students to partner with us on that journey.
