WLKI / WFGA / WLZZ

Northeast Indiana has been designated a Talent Hub by Lumina Foundation, in partnership with The Kresge Foundation, and will receive a $125,000 grant to support local efforts to increase educational attainment.

Northeast Indiana’s 11 counties, along with 22 other national Talent Hubs selected in 2017 and 2018, meet rigorous standards for creating environments that cultivate, attract and retain talent, particularly among today’s students, many of whom are adults, Black, Hispanic, or Native American, students from low-income households, or the first in their families to go to college.

Ryan Twiss, vice president of talent initiatives for the Northeast Indiana Regional Partnership, said increasing educational attainment in Northeast Indiana is critical to the region’s economic growth.

As part of the region’s economic development work, the Regional Partnership works collaboratively in an effort to meet three specific goals by 2030: increasing per capita personal income to 90% against the national average, growing the region’s population to 1 million residents and increasing post-secondary attainment to 60%.

The Talent Hub designation was earned through collaboration with the Northeast Indiana Colleges and Universities Network. The Network’s leadership group is comprised of all of the chief campus officers in the region’s higher education institutions and convenes regularly to support business attraction and expansion needs, to develop innovative trainings for employers and incumbent workers, to connect interns and recent grads to local employers and now to create a cross-organization strategy to reengage minority adults.

Talent Hubs are part of Lumina’s $13 million community mobilization strategy, which focuses on local and regional efforts to increase attainment in ways that can inform other communities.