Several years ago, Bloomberg Philanthropies launched a competition to award struggling cities $1 million each for trying a novel approach at revitalization. It was called the Public Art Challenge, with the goal being that each place should think up some big, unifying, and life-improving masterpiece.

According to Bloomberg’s math, the four winning projects generated $13 million for those four places, both in terms of new jobs, related neighborhood investments, and visitor spending. More than 10 million people are estimated to have viewed those works, which not so subtly encouraged water conservation, culinary job training, better-lit public spaces, and improvement to blighted buildings, respectively.

Bloomberg Philanthropies head Mike Bloomberg liked the idea so much that he green-lit another round. Any city with a population of 30,000 or more may apply for the 2018 Public Art Challenge, part of the American Cities Initiative, which launched last year to support local-level leaders, artists, residents, and entrepreneurs finding new ways (and policies) to improve civic life.

At least three winning metros will earn another $1 million a piece for a concept tackling some critical issue inside city limits.  As Fast Company has reported, the initial wave of exhibitions was ambitious. In Los Angeles, artists created a series of installations related to the theme of water conservation amid concerns of drought and stormwater waste. In Gary, the community founded ArtHouse, a “social kitchen” to bring people downtown for art displays and culinary classes that work like job training.

Read the full article about funding public art projects that help communities by Ben Paynter at Fast Company.