ECIRP’s new plan lays out blueprint

East Central Indiana Regional Partnership’s goal is to bring economic growth to the region.

It now has a detailed plan for how to make that happen.

East Central Indiana Regional Partnership last week released its strategic plan that it will use as a blueprint for the region for the next two to three years.

“If you don’t have a north star … that you’re aiming for, how do you know where you’re going? How do you know where you’ve been? That, for me, was the No. 1 most important thing,” said Trevor Friedeberg, CEO and president of East Central Indiana Regional Partnership.

Friedeberg, who took over as the organization’s leader last year, noted the importance of having trackable, traceable goals and evaluating progress regularly. They will give the regional partnership the ability to ensure it is making an impact and to readjust if needed.

The plan, which was developed with assistance from Smart Solutions Group of Iowa, lays out trends in the region that includes Jay, Randolph, Blackford, Delaware, Grant, Henry, Wayne, Rush and Fayette counties. Those include a declining population (a loss of more than 5,300 residents over a 5-year period), decline in available jobs (a loss of more than 8,000 in five years) and a low level of residents who have a bachelor’s degree (11.9% compared to nearly 20.5% nationwide).

To help address those issues, the plan — it is available online at ecirp.org/strategic-plan — lays out themes of diversifying industry, improving communication and establishing a clear identity.

It also identifies target outcomes with strategies to help achieve those goals.

In the area of communication, the No. 1 strategy is to form an East Central Indiana League of Cities and Counties in order to build and take advantage of the knowledge base throughout the region.

“How I’m looking at that is to be able to provide just more communication and educational opportunities to elected officials and other stakeholders throughout the region,” said Friedeberg. “Sometimes I feel like there’s not enough discussion happening across counties and even sometimes within a county about different efforts that are taking place.”

That will include planning training for elected officials about the economic development process, likely in early 2024.

Other target outcomes include:

•Diversifying funding and support base by putting together a goal-oriented investor recruitment campaign

•Developing a regional branding effort, including utilizing Forge Your Path (forgeeci.com)

•Targeting business segments that would make a significant economic impact on the region

•Identifying new areas in which East Central Indiana Regional Partnership can be of assistance to its communities

•Focusing on projects, such as broadband, early childhood education and housing, to improve “quality of place”

Each outcome is broken down into smaller goals that the regional partnership plans to address.

“It is bite-sized,” said Friedeberg. “There’s little pieces that we can chip away at and continue to make progress. …

“We’re gonna continue to chip away at these until we can get everything implemented and then reassess and keep growing from there.”

Smart Solutions Group worked with the regional partnership to develop the plan through a series of meetings that included board members, local economic development officials and other stakeholders.

The next step is to engage those same groups and begin working toward the outcomes laid out in the plan.

“I think this is a huge step for the regional partnership just to show that we are here and we are working very diligently on behalf of everyone and all the residents of east central Indiana to make sure that we’ve got our priorities in the right place so that we can set the entire region up for growth and sustained growth as we move forward,” Friedeberg said.