Indiana HomeTown Competitiveness

Based on a program developed by the Nebraska Community Foundation, IHTC provides rural areas with the tools to discover, and then more fully utilize, their existing assets. Indiana Grantmakers Alliance is one of six partner organizations on the IHTC resource team. Other partners on the resource team include the Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA), Ball State University’s Building Better Communities, the Indiana Rural Development Council, Purdue University’s Center for Regional Development/Extension service and USDA-Rural Development.

The program emphasizes four pillars of development:

• Mobilizing local leaders and building community civic capacity; 
• Energizing local entrepreneurs to build strong economies; 
• Capturing wealth transfer to raise development dollars; and 
• Attracting young people to strengthen community demographics.

The program began as a pilot in 9 rural Hoosier communities. As a result of the pilot group’s successes, 5 additional communities joined as pilots in 2009. In many of the participating communities, the community foundation served as the project lead. In other instances, community foundations were (at very least) an integral park of the team.
For additional information contact Jenny Kloer (317) 630-5200 or jkloer@indianagrantmakers.org