Indiana Rural Development Council

Rural Indiana’s Top Ten Priorities

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Nearly 200 rural citizens, community leaders and service providers established the top ten rural priorities for Indiana during the first-ever RISE 2020 Congress June 13, 2007. RISE 2020, the Rural Indiana Strategy for Excellence, is a fifteen-year cultural framework designed to help rural communities be great places to live, learn, work, and play. The ten priorities were chosen from 38 recommendations presented during the event held at the Hendricks County 4-H Fairgrounds and Conference Complex.

  1. Offer entrepreneurial training in the formal K-12 and post-secondary curricula to cultivate the development of homegrown businesses.
  2. Create a local leadership culture that sustains economic development through recruitment, retention and entrepreneurship strategies
  3. Develop an entrepreneurial and innovative culture focused on community capacity opportunities.
  4. Create a new system of Indiana Rural Regional Planning Organizations to coordinate regional planning, prioritizing, and decision-making to meet future transportation demands.
  5. Align educational funding systems to address students and their needs
  6. Commit public and private resources to entrepreneurship development systems that will create or strengthen homegrown businesses.
  7. Ensure the availability of affordable medical services to rural residents, e.g. hospitals, clinics, emergency services, mental health, and dental services.
  8. Strengthen the planning mechanisms that communities, regions, and state agencies use to protect, promote, and develop land, water, and other natural resources.
  9. Transform public financing systems to encourage communities to share resources and develop multi-jurisdictional services.
  10. Identify and market new and existing career opportunities in rural Indiana communities.

To view the Top Ten Rural Priorities Brochure, click here (PDF, 256 kb).