Three years of community visioning meetings produced a snapshot of goals for the Evansville region’s future.
Data from Leadership Everyone’s Regional VOICE initiative were publicly shared on Sept. 14. Around 2,000 participants in 73 meetings brainstormed ways to establish a better, shared future for residents of Gibson, Posey, Vanderburgh, and Warrick counties in Indiana and Henderson County in Kentucky. Online charts reflect participants’ passions along with what they want to carry forward, and leave behind. Using the data, organizers focus on six umbrella topics with the most potential impact without overlapping other groups’ missions: connected region; experiences; supported schools; diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging; sustainable region; and a human library, when people get together and teach each other new things.
“We selected the six areas based on the visions shared with us by the diverse people of our region, and then we invited them to help make the dreams a reality,” Leadership Everyone CEO Lynn Miller Pease says.
The regional focus of Leadership Everyone – formerly known as Leadership Evansville – took shape in 2020. Miller Pease says data collected during visioning sessions since then reflect the region’s diversity in age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, income levels, county of residence, and more.
The sessions already are yielding results. The May 2022 VOICE meeting with Benjamin Bosse High School students identified a need for upgraded facilities, including a chemistry laboratory. Leadership Everyone pitched a partnership to SABIC, and the Posey County chemical manufacturer sponsored a complete renovation made ready for the 2023-24 academic year.
Continuing the momentum, meetings will be held every two months in a different county, with the next slated for Nov. 16 at Ivy Tech Community College.
