Read the 2022-25 ROW Strategic Plan

Reconnecting to Our Waterways

Reconnecting to Our Waterways (ROW) is a collective impact initiative that has worked purposefully since 2012 to change the quality of life and ecology along Indianapolis waterways and surrounding neighborhoods. ROW has been able to convene community partners to enhance quality of life through innovation, analysis, cultural advancement and investment along Indy waterways and neighborhoods. We have walked alongside communities to discover and celebrate Indy’s waterways as a community asset.

Vision:

Our place-based model of authentic community engagement builds capacity to support our partners’ work and for waterway communities to build the hyper-local, democratic processes needed to address the challenges and opportunities with which they are presented. 

Mission:

We cultivate and support a network of resident-led, action-oriented change by providing a platform from which organizations with waterway interests gather and support neighborhoods along the waterways in Marion County.

Value Statements:

  • ROW collaborates with communities to discover, celebrate, and improve Indianapolis’ waterways as community assets.
  • ROW is motivated to increase equitable access to art, nature, and beauty every day, for everyone.

Goals:

ROW is an inclusive, action-oriented, collective impact effort with clear vision, goals, and a holistic approach leading to measurable outcomes.

  • Convene, foster, energize, and inform community leaders to support ROW’s mission and vision.
  • Increase engagement in, and knowledge and appreciation of Indianapolis waterways and the surrounding environment.
  • Improve the condition of Indianapolis waterways and adjacent communities to be healthier, more accessible, and more inviting.

 

Waterways:

Since its inception, Reconnecting to Our Waterways (ROW) was focused on the six major waterways in Marion County: the Central Canal, Fall Creek, Little Eagle Creek, Pleasant Run, Pogue’s Run, and White River. The focus area was a 10- minute walk (a half-mile) around each waterway, and a connectivity area of a 20-minute bike ride (3 miles) around each waterway. The initial phase of the initiative was focused on six neighborhoods selected because of their strong community engagement network and existing relationships with key initiative partners.

ROW’s 2022 Strategic Plan expands the definition of the waterway geographies to include: 

  1.     Named waterways in Marion County
  2.     Primary waterways with current focus – White River, Little Eagle Creek, Fall Creek,  Pogue’s Run, Pleasant Run, Central Canal
  3.     Racial/Ethnicity/Socially-Vulnerable Neighborhoods emphasis

Elements:

ROW is focused on holistic solutions that integrate six related elements. Each element has a taskforce to identify and support projects connected to each waterway.

ROW History and Background 

In October 2010, the City of Indianapolis and the Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF) hosted a CEO’s for Cities’ Livability Challenge, where national experts and local Indianapolis leaders convened with the goal to generate ten big ideas for how cities can provide ever-present access to art, good design, and nature. One of the big ideas for every city to consider was to “reconnect to your waterways.”

Indianapolis leaders promoted the Livability Challenge ideas to Indianapolis stakeholders throughout 2011. In late December 2011, Eli Lilly Company was looking for a focus and long-term impact for their Lilly Day of Service so they brought community leaders together and the idea of Reconnecting to Our Waterways (ROW) was born. Early stakeholders included local arts and cultural organizations, local government, social and environmental agencies, corporate leaders, universities, museums and others. 

Prior to the Livability Challenge, six Indianapolis urban neighborhoods created Quality of Life Plans via the Great Indy Neighborhoods Initiative (GINI), launched in 2006 and expanded over the coming years and later renamed Great Places 2020. Those initiatives were established and continue to support neighbors working across traditional boundaries to collaborate on issues affecting their neighborhoods. These Quality of Life Plans became the original geographic focus areas for ROW, along six Indianapolis waterways.

Consistent with the tenets of collective impact, ROW has focused on creating a strong foundation of metrics and backbone guidelines to frame the collective initiative. By its second year, the Steering Committee laid the groundwork for grassroots initiatives through waterway committees. Neighbors and community leaders embraced ROW as an organization that could help them accomplish their Quality of Life goals. ROW also provided avenues for professionals who could support those goals and work on collective goals of their own, through the Element Committees. The six original Elements have since consolidated into four, including: Arts & Culture, Economics, Ecology & Education and Healthy Connections.

New Strategic Plan and ROW Evolution:

In the Summer of 2022, ROW approved a new Strategic Plan which expanded its focus to include the White River watershed within Marion County, and is developing a direction for evolving the collective to more closely align with collective members, to evolve into new neighborhood, and to ensure that its original goals of lifting up Indy’s most socially vulnerable neighborhoods are where ROW’s limited resources are targeted. Read the entire 2022-25 Strategic Plan.