Current Projects

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Agriculture Task Force

Indiana Entrepreneurial Agriculture Directory

New innovations in farming have rapidly changed products and practices across the country and the Mid West. No longer are traditional methods of farming adequate to meet the demand of an ever changing and competitive market. Entrepreneurial agriculture incorporates a wide range of practices including but not limited to innovative marketing, new production techniques, and the development of non-traditional crops. SIRDP developed a revolutionary tool to aid rural farmers in Southern Indiana in developing these new practices to keep pace with cutting edge transformations. The Indiana Entrepreneurial Agriculture Directory contains a listing of agriculture entrepreneurs and detailed case studies to educate rural farmers on the varies agricultural innovations to enable farmers to learn from existing operations and to explore the feasibility of new ideas for their own operations.

Benchmarking Task Force

The Heartlands: Southern Indiana’s Average Family

The Southern Indiana Rural Development Project (SIRDP) was born from the fallout from the Hudson report in the early 1990s, which outlined in detail how far Southern Indiana lagged behind the state and national averages in almost every important socio-economic factor. More then a decade later, where does Southern Indiana stand in comparison to other parts of the state and nation? Using data from the Indiana Research Business Center, The Heartlands: Southern Indiana’s Average Family website (link) outlines important characteristics of the average Southern Indiana family in order to construct an accurate picture of rural Southern Indiana residents.

Technology Task Force

Connecting Your Community Through Broadband

Broadband telecommunications has become a basic infrastructure in business, education, and government. This technology allows the high-speech exchange of information over the internet. The lack of access to broadband services puts communities at a tremendous disadvantage in keeping and attracting employers, in educating children, and in providing efficient healthcare and public services.

SIRDP is currently working on a publication for rural communities.  The purpose of the Indiana Rural Broadband Planning Guide: Connecting your Community Through Broadband is to provide a step by step process on how to bring high speed communications into rural communities.  Broadband has the potential to contribute to a community’s economy, education and quality of life.  This planning guide could very well be described as a survivor’s handbook for the 21^st Century.     

Brain Gain

Retain, Return, Recruit

Many rural southern Indiana communities are losing the lifeblood of their communities, educated young people. SIRDP recognizes that a concerted effort must be made both to keep those young people that already in communities and to recruit other young people to Jackson County. SIDRP has created a three- phase pilot program to attract young people back to their communities. The Retention phase of the program creates a network via the internet to keep local high school students connected to their own communities by including a calendar of activities, high school news, and summer internships and job postings. The Return portion of the project focuses on young professionals between 25-35 that may wish to return to their communities. Finally, the recruit portion emphasizes the need to attract individuals in the region who might be ready for a small town life. These activities represent an ongoing effort to reverse the braindrain phenomenon.

AIC

Scottsburg Community Planning

Engaging community leaders and citizens in planning for the future can be difficult. However, in order to maintain a community and help it grow, citizens must be able to articulate visions, achieve consensus, and develop a plan of action. Appreciation, Influence, and Control (AIC) is an alternative planning model that has traditionally been reserved for companies and international environments and has been an effective method of planning. This process helps engage participants in the planning process and develop concrete plans for future growth. Scottsburg in partnership with SIRDP, has been testing ACI as a tool for community planning and has developed a timeline to start the process. Scottsburg and SIRDP feel that this planning process could serve as a model for other communities to plan for the future.

Retention & Expansion

Daviess County Skills Enhancement and Training Project

Continuing education and skills enhancement for workers remains an important component of maintaining the viability of a manufacturing business. Continued innovation in technology requires workers to continuously learn new skills. This project will determine the feasibility of a center to aid in training of workers for current manufacturers. The goal is to improve worker skills and improve regional business productivity. The center will be driven by the local community with oversight by the private sector. SIRDP will partner with the Daviess County Economic Development Foundation to create a manual for the center to make such a center in any region a reality. The manual will include creating development plans and information about identifying potential sources of funding. This manual will serve as a step by step guide that other regions can use.

Entrepreneurship

Small Business Planning Education Courses

Developing an entrepreneurial economy in rural Southern Indiana is an important component of prosperous communities. However, starting a business is never an easy task for business people with limited experience. From conducting feasibility studies to writing a business plan to developing marketing ideas, beginning entrepreneurs often have difficulty starting up their businesses and keeping them viable and profitable. SIRDP in partnership with Indiana University Southeast developed entrepreneur training classes to aid start-up businesses. The training classes cover two basic but important concepts, evaluating business concepts and writing business plans. The purpose and goal of the training classes is to assist individuals in establishing self-sufficiency through business entrepreneurship and to expand and create new job and business opportunities for residents of rural southern Indiana.

The SIRDP Mentoring Program

SIRDP is working in Greene, Orange, and Washington counties in developing a pilot entrepreneurial project. In these counties, economic development professionals have assembled teams of mentor to serve as an advisory committee for small businesses.