Prosperous Places Resilient Food Systems
Flower Day Detroit
Markets / Main Streets Thought Leader
Dan Carmody, has dedicated the past 40 years leading award-winning non profit Community Development organizations in Rock Island, IL, Fort Wayne, IN, and Detroit, MI.
Since the mid-1990’s he has also provided services through Carmody Consulting to more than 60 communities across North America. Typically these services are aimed at helping Economic and Community Development organizations develop new strategies to help propel their communities at a higher trajectory.
“Dan’s dynamic and conversational presentation style allows him to deliver a staggering amount of rich and relevant information in an approachable and engaging way. Our audience of citizen-advocates, nonprofit leaders and elected officials was enthralled, and Dan left them with a clear sense of how the successes and lessons of Eastern Market’s revitalization can inform our hometown’s trajectory for growth and equity.”
In 2013, as a response to growing interest from clients seeking a deeper understanding of brand identity, organizational development, and marketing, Vivian Carmody joined the firm. Her knowledge of brand strategy, municipalities, marketing, public relations, and arts and culture offers organizations the consummate professional who knows how to create, manage, and implement programs that strengthen businesses, encourage community-wide adoption, and meld stakeholder participation.
Sadly Vivian died in a tragic auto accident in 2023. Her energy, passion and keen brand strategy skills are greatly missed.
Carmody Consulting typically works as a consulting team member. Teams are “hand-picked” specifically for each client. And, while its team doesn’t all sit under one roof, the years of hands on experience each team member brings to the table provides a level of expertise not likely to be found elsewhere.
This specialized model results in delivering broader insights into the anthropology of "places" – ultimately driving deeper strategic thinking and significantly better results.
areas of expertise include:
Downtown & Main Street Strategic Planning
Innovative non profit management
Small Scale Upper Floor Development
Public and Farmers Market Development
Local Food System Resiliency
Public Market Management
Looking to grow your local food economy?
We are experts in leveraging farmers markets and public markets to build a stronger eco-system to support regional food businesses from farm gate to the dining table. Taking a legacy market and transforming it into the nations signature food hub, Dan’s work at Eastern Market has inspired others around the world to get at the long slog of building regional supply chains that can sustain us when those who are too big too fail. Fail.
Eastern Market Partnership innovation includes:
Growing New Farmers
Food Business Incubation & Acceleration
Farm Stands Farmers Market Networks, and Food Box Delivery to make healthy food easier to access
Building the organic conviviality of markets to better connect community
Building consensus in market communities known for disparate, passionate stakeholder interests
Engaging and Compelling Speaker
Presentation at the World Union of Wholesale Markets in Rmiini, Italy in 2024
Eastern Market, Detroit, MI
Public Markets
Carmody has been a national and international leader on the development of public market districts and in the utilization of farmers markets to strengthen regional food systems.
Main Streets
In addition to leading downtown revitalization it two Midwestern cities, Carmody has provided consulting services to more than 40 communities around North America. He and Mike Jackson continue to provide Upstairs Downtown a do-it-yourself, small scale development services to promote upper floor development.
Community Leadership
Carmody helps stimulate deeper discussions about exceptional community leadership. Local leadership has never been more important as international, national, and regional political discord reaches new depths. Equally important is a session dedicated to successful succession planning a most work around main streets and markets takes longer than one generation for successful transformation.