From Event to Community Asset

Miriam • Apr 10, 2026

When Troy DeShano stepped into leadership at the Northwest Michigan Arts & Culture Network, he did not begin by launching a slate of new programs. He began by listening.
Over the course of his first year as executive director, he spent time asking artists, arts administrators, and cultural organizations across the region what they needed most. What he heard, again and again, was not simply a call for more activity.

“What people really desire is deeper connection.”

That insight has helped shape the Network’s work in recent years, including the evolution of its Arts & Culture Summit. With support from Rotary Charities through a Seed Grant and later an Assets for Thriving Communities Grant, the Network has been able to reimagine the Summit not just as an event, but as a growing community asset that strengthens the region’s creative ecosystem.

Listening before leading

As Troy listened to artists and cultural leaders across Northwest Michigan, a consistent theme emerged: many people felt isolated. Independent artists were looking for connection beyond professional networking alone. Organizations described working in silos, often too busy or stretched to build the kinds of relationships that could lead to deeper collaboration.
That feedback also shaped how the Network thought about the Arts & Culture Summit. The gathering had long offered value to the region’s arts community, but Troy heard that participants wanted more time for relationship-building, more inspiration, and more opportunities to experience art as part of the gathering itself.
“They all said very similar things,” he said. “They all said, ‘I feel very isolated. I’m seeking connection beyond professional networking, but real human relationship.’”
For the Network, that listening process clarified an important part of its role. Rather than trying to become an organization that simply does more and more programming, it could focus on helping artists and organizations connect, learn from one another, and strengthen the broader ecosystem together.

Reimagining the Summit

That clarity helped spark a major redesign of the Arts & Culture Summit.
With Seed Grant support from Rotary Charities, the Network was able to invest in the planning and early development work needed to rethink the Summit’s format, purpose, and experience. That work included gathering and applying feedback, shaping a stronger program identity, securing venues and presenters, and building a more intentional experience around what participants were truly seeking.
“What Rotary helped fund wasn’t really the event itself,” Troy said. “It was all that work—the development of what the program is, what its identity is, what the need is, and how we invest in it.”
The result was a reimagined 2025 Summit in downtown Traverse City that expanded to multiple venues and placed greater emphasis on inspiration, hands-on learning, and lots of time for meaningful relationship-building. That shift reflected what the Network had heard from the community: that arts and culture workers wanted more than information alone. They wanted space to connect, reflect, and feel renewed in their work.
As Troy put it, “As we redesigned it, it was around: how do we design it as something that people are actually seeking?”

Strengthening the creative ecosystem

This evolution reflects more than the growth of a single annual gathering. It shows what can happen when early support helps an organization listen closely, adapt with intention, and invest in the connective tissue that helps a region thrive.
The Arts & Culture Summit is one visible expression of a larger goal: building a stronger, more resilient creative ecosystem across Northwest Michigan. That means creating opportunities for people from different disciplines, communities, and kinds of organizations to learn from one another and build lasting relationships.
“The value isn’t just informing collaborative projects,” Troy said. “It’s tightening that web of relationships so the whole infrastructure for the arts is strong.”
That perspective aligns closely with Rotary Charities’ approach to supporting changemakers. Through grantmaking and other forms of support, Rotary Charities invests not only in projects, but in the planning, partnerships, and community-rooted development that can help ideas grow into lasting assets.
In the Network’s case, the Seed Grant helped make it possible to test a new direction for the Summit. Building on that progress, an Assets for Thriving Communities Grant is now helping strengthen the planning, partnerships, and infrastructure needed to sustain the Summit’s continued growth as a regional asset.

Looking ahead

The Summit looks different now than it did just a few years ago. 
Instead of packing the schedule with back-to-back sessions, there’s more room to slow down, try something, and talk with the person sitting next to you. Workshops are designed so people can actually work on something while they’re there. There’s space to linger between sessions. There’s art in the experience, not just conversation about it.
Those choices reflect what Troy and the Network heard early on: people didn’t just need more information. They needed time together.
That might sound simple, but it matters. Much of the region’s arts and culture work happens in small organizations or through individual artists who are often operating on their own. When there isn’t space to connect, it’s harder to share ideas, learn from one another, or even know what others are working on.
The Summit is one way of changing that, creating a place where those relationships can start to take shape.
As the Network continues to build on what’s been learned, the goal isn’t just to grow the event. It’s to keep strengthening that underlying web of connection that supports the region’s creative work.
For those who take part, the Summit offers something simple but often hard to find: time, space, and a room full of people who understand the work and why it matters.