In partnership with Oklahoma-based nonprofit 1050 Forward, the Thriving Cities Lab began work in 2025 with two Oklahoma micropolitans – cities with populations between ten and fifty thousand – Stillwater and Muskogee, Oklahoma.
The Thriving Cities Lab was delighted to work with Stillwater as a national pilot city. Home to Oklahoma State University, the city held particular appeal for a civics lab based in Charlottesville and proudly part of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia.
While there is abundant evidence in the data and on the ground to confirm Stillwater’s pride in being the home of Oklahoma State University — and a number of OSU alums were involved in our review process — Stillwater has worked hard since the shock of the departure of its students at the start of World War II to be more than a single industry town.
Stillwater’s 1050 Forward Fellows chose as their 100 Day Civic Challenge Project nonprofit board leadership and the health of its nonprofit sector more broadly, and the site visit team and the data team were able to bring together illuminating feedback on this component of Stillwater civil society.
One remarkable finding from Stillwater’s Civic Capacity Survey bears mention here. Fully 87% of the Stillwater leaders we surveyed agreed that the city “displays a hopeful attitude about the future”— a profound statement of confidence in the city’s prospects.
The Stillwater Thriving Project was made possible with financial support from the George Kaiser Family Foundation and the Williams & Flora Hewlett Foundation, as well as the assistance of the following 1050 Forward Fellows: Bryan Larison (project liaison), Ruth Cavin, Michelle Nabors, and Denise Webber; and expert help from 1050 Forward leaders Joy Hofmeister and Brigette Zorn.
You can read the Stillwater Thriving Project Phase One Report here (pdf).