Frequently Asked Questions

The Questions

1. How much money did Lilly Endowment award to Columbus and Southeast Indiana?
2. What is the money to be used for?
3. Why was it given?
4. How will Southeast Indiana be involved?
5. What is the Heritage Fund—the Community Foundation of Bartholomew County?
6. What is the Community Education Coalition?
7. What is the Lilly Endowment Inc.?
8. What is the vision of EcO15?
9. What are the objectives, strategies, supporting projects, and impact of EcO15?
10. What are the relevant demographics for the region?
11. What does the 'hub and node network' mean?
12. What is 'Dream It Do It'?
13. What are the measured outcomes of EcO15 and what progress have we made?
14. How is the money being spent?
15. Who manages the project?
16. What are the projects of the Healthcare Services portion of the grant?
17. Who will be users of the lab and equipment?
18. What types of programs will be offered?
19. What are the outcomes?
20. What is the role of County Coordinators?
21. What is the fiscal year for EcO15 Participants?
22. Are counties required to submit Advanced Manufacturing proposals for the entire $900,000 over the 3 year period?
23. How will proposals be developed for the Healthcare education infrastructure?
24. Are the counties required to propose plans for all of the Part 2 funds at one time or can it be broken up into phases or segments?
25. Can Part 2 funds be applied to tuition, course fees, and the like for participating enrollees in Advanced Manufacturing courses offered by service providers like Ivy Tech, Amatrol, Southeastern Career Center or others?
26. Can EcO15 funds be applied to facility or equipment rental?
27. What about the Hospitality & Tourism initiative?

The Answers

1. How much money did Lilly Endowment award to Columbus and Southeast Indiana?
   COLUMBUS, INDIANA – Dec. 12, 2007: Lilly Endowment Inc. will provide $38 million in grants to two Bartholomew County organizations, officials announced today. The grants will fund educational programs associated with advanced manufacturing, health care services and hospitality and tourism for 10 counties in Southeast Indiana.
   The Community Education Coalition will receive $26 million; $12 million will be awarded to Heritage Fund – the Community Foundation of Bartholomew County. The two organizations will provide leadership, oversight and management support services for the regionally-focused initiative called Economic Opportunities 2015 (EcO15).
   
2. What is the money to be used for?
   The EcO15 initiative will directly impact the counties of Bartholomew, Dearborn, Decatur, Franklin, Jackson, Jefferson, Jennings, Ripley, Ohio and Switzerland. Heritage Fund will work with the community foundations in the region to distribute grant funds into each county. The key objective of the initiative is to advance people in the region by at least one level in their training, education and/or job placement.
   Proceeds of the Lilly Endowment grants will be focused on three primary economic growth areas and coordinating services, which include:
   • Advanced Manufacturing: As more than 28 percent of the region’s workforce (38,000 people) is dedicated to advanced manufacturing, a substantial portion of the grant will be dedicated to developing an advanced manufacturing network of excellence, incorporating the regional Dream It. Do It. initiative. This network will establish a comprehensive advanced manufacturing education and training program that will use regional advanced manufacturing labs positioned throughout Southeastern Indiana.
   • Health Care Services: More than 10 percent of the region’s workforce (14,000 people) is employed in the health care services sector. Proceeds of the grant will be leveraged to create a regional network of stationary and mobile clinical simulation labs that can be used for accreditation and advanced degree certifications.
   • Hospitality/Tourism: Revenue from the gaming industry has helped spur tourism efforts in the region and created a heavy demand for service employees. The grant will help create training and career pathway development for meaningful careers in the hospitality and tourism field.
   • Shared Coordinating Services: To coordinate and align the regional learning system, the grant will provide funds to staff an EcO15 coordinator located in each of the 10 counties. Each coordinator will have an understanding of process and programs to better guide students and will act as a liaison between industry and educational institutions
   
3. Why was it given?
   In announcing these grants, Lilly Endowment President N. Clay Robbins said:
   "The Endowment invited the Heritage Fund of Bartholomew County to propose a plan to enable the residents of its community and region to take fuller advantage of the promising economic development opportunities in front of them. This invitation was offered because of the strength of the community foundation’s board and staff leadership and the vision, dedication and collaborative spirit of the community and business leadership in Columbus and Southeastern Indiana, demonstrated in part through the Community Education Coalition. We also were impressed with the compelling economic opportunities in advanced manufacturing, health care services, and hospitality and tourism industries."
   
4. How will Southeast Indiana be involved?
   The EcO15 Initiative will be guided by a 40-member regional advisory council. The council will be made up of representatives from each of the 10 counties and will include leaders from community foundations, education institutions, workforce partners, private-industry employers, economic development organizations and government representatives.
   
5. What is the Heritage Fund—the Community Foundation of Bartholomew County?
   (www.heritagefundbc.org) was formed as a community foundation in 1976 with the purpose of continuing a legacy of giving by providing an opportunity for all citizens to make gifts and establish charitable funds to benefit the local community. It was created primarily to:
   • Provide responsible stewardship of gifts donated for broad charitable purposes;
   • Develop leadership to address community issues;
   • Serve as a catalyst for positive change in partnership with others;
   • Promote philanthropy broadly within the community.
   
6. What is the Community Education Coalition?
   The Community Education Coalition (www.educationcoalition.com) is a not for profit organization that brings together education, business and community stakeholders to align and integrate a community learning system. Specifically, the CEC works to promote the efficient and successful integration of education, economic vitality and quality of life programming. Over the past few years, the CEC and its partners have established the Columbus Learning Center, a state-of-the-art 130,000 square foot educational facility that provides shared classroom, lab and library space to area educational institutions, secured funding for expanded post-secondary education and training programs, assisted in the development of K-12 school programming and funded initiatives that support the development of pre-kindergarten children.
   
7. What is the Lilly Endowment Inc.?
   Lilly Endowment Inc. (www.lillyendowment.org) is an Indianapolis-based private philanthropic foundation created in 1937 by three members of the Lilly family through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. Gifts of stock in that company remain the financial bedrock of the Endowment. It is, however, a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the wishes of the three founders, Lilly Endowment exists to support the causes of community development, education and religion. The Lilly family’s foremost priority was to help the people of their city and state build a better life. Although the Endowment also supports efforts of national significance and an occasional international project, it remains primarily committed to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana.
   
8. What is the vision of EcO15?
   To connect the residents of Southeast Indiana to economic opportunity through education by 2015.
   
9. What are the objectives, strategies, supporting projects, and impact of EcO15?
   Objective #1—Move residents up one level in their education, training, and/or job placement.
   Strategies to achieve this objective include: creating an Advanced Manufacturing Network of Excellence; a Healthcare Service Network of Excellence, and Pathways within Hospitality and Tourism.
   EcO15 will impact 38,000 advanced manufacturing workers, 14,000 healthcare service workers, and 14,000 hospitality/tourism workers. That represents 50% of the total employment in Southeast Indiana.
   Supporting projects include: Dream It Do It Campaign, Advanced Manufacturing Center of Excellence (Hub), Regional Integrated Technology Labs (Nodes), Southeast Health Consortium, High Fidelity Sim and Mobile Labs, Allied Health and Nursing Education, Career Pathway Development, and Customer Service Training Module Development.
   
   Objective#2—Coordinate and align a regional learning system by 'connecting the dots.'
   Strategies to achieve this objective include: align education, workforce, and community programs and career pathways, create career awareness, and cultivate emerging innovations. This will impact 34 high schools, 10 learning centers, 7 college campuses, and 6 work one sites.
   Supporting projects include: EcO15 Director and Regional Coordinators, Pathways and Project Coordination, Marketing and Outreach Coordination. Identify, Recruit, and Refer Coordination, and emerging innovations: Latino Workforce Development, E-Learning, Mandarin Language, etc.
   
   Objective #3—Be a catalyst for regional leadership.
   Strategies include: increase regional collaboration, prepare regional foundations for change, and position foundations for visionary leadership. These strategies will be achieved through leveraging the $38 million investment.
   Supporting projects include: EcO15 Advisory Council, Regional Foundation Workshops and Conferences, EcO15 Funding and Support.
   
10. What are the relevant demographics for the region?
    • Mainly rural
    • 300,000 population
    • 140,000 employment
    • Population growth rate is relatively flat and will be in the future
    • Nearly one in three people work in advanced manufacturing. Manufacturing is the top employment sector in six of the ten counties.
    • Average wages for advanced manufacturing jobs in Southeast Indiana is $44,000 which is 20-30% higher than the next largest employment sectors.
    • 3,000 students graduate from high school each year
    • Approximately 30% high school drop-out rate
    • 15% of employed people, age 25 or older have a bachelor’s degree compared to the state average of 22% and national average of 26%
    • There are 7 hospitals in our region; two of the states five Magnet hospitals are located in our region (Columbus Regional Hospital and Schneck Medical Center at Seymour).
    • Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation (tourism and hospitality) are the top employment sectors in Dearborn, Ohio, and Switzerland counties.
    
11. What does the 'hub and node network' mean?
    The hub is a proposed 45,000 sq. ft. facility that will be located in Columbus, close to Ivy Tech, IUPUC, and Purdue College of Technology. It will be a shared state of the art facility with education, workforce, and business development services. There will be a blend of education and technical assistance programs and services available: Ivy Tech and Purdue Advanced Manufacturing programs, Purdue Technical Assistance Program personnel, Dream It Do It staff, Project Lead the Way, and MSSC (Manufacturing Skills Standard Curriculum).The hub will support the network of centers in each county. It will develop programs that bring business and education together.
    The hub will be owned by the Columbus Learning Center Management Corporation dba as Community Education Coalition.
    Nodes will be ‘integrated technology’ labs in high schools, career technical centers, learning centers, and/or post secondary sites. They will support MSSC, Project Lead the Way, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) curriculum, and other project based, applied learning modules. The intent of the nodes is to bring learning closer to students home or employment. Programming will be networked between the hub and all nodes so teachers and curriculum can be shared.
    
12. What is 'Dream It Do It'?
    Dream It Do It is a nation-wide campaign that Southeast Indiana is participating in through an agreement with the National Association of Manufacturing. The campaign is designed to: create broad awareness about manufacturing careers, redefine the image of manufacturing, showcase the industry’s growing range of career opportunities, demonstrate how young people and adults can secure great advanced manufacturing jobs through training and education, and to bring together our region’s education and workforce system.
    The original campaign was designed for 18-26 year olds, focused on a marketing campaign only, and concluded in 12-18 months. Given the needs of Southeast Indiana, we have increased the scope to middle school to senior citizens, expanded the campaign to take a systems perspective that includes raising awareness through marketing, directing citizens to education and training that may be needed to be considered for manufacturing jobs, and to assist in the placement of a highly qualified workforce through a catch and referral system. Finally, the Dream It Do It campaign will be ongoing program.
    Dream It Do It is a major project in the meeting our manufacturing education strategy.
    
13. What are the measured outcomes of EcO15 and what progress have we made?
    # of increased job placements - during the last year the number of manufacturing jobs has decreased by 2%. Southeast Indiana increased by 0.2% during the same time period. With the implementation of Indiana Career Connects (Job matching system) in July, we will be able to track in more detail.
    Per cent decrease in high school dropout rate – the graduation rate of the cohort class of 2005-6 was 79.0% for Southeast Indiana. In 2006-7 the rate was 80.2%. While this comparison was before the official EcO15 announcement in December 2007, we believe that simply talking about the problem has increased awareness and may have been a factor in seeing some improvement. This fall we will begin to see more Project Lead the Way and MSSC programs implemented. Our belief is that this will capture the interest of some students who may have potentially dropped out. We have broken the graduate rate down by county so that each county’s EcO15 team can have baseline data for improvement.
    # of increased student enrollments- the # of students enrolled in manufacturing related programs (degree and certification) has increased from 1100 to 1400 in the last 18 months for a 28% increase. A major part of the increase is attributed to a grant we received from the State of Indiana. With new Project Lead the Way and MSSC courses being developed, we should see a positive trend.
    % of increased student graduates- the data is available, but has not been aggregated as it needs to be.
    % improvement in per capita income for our region as compared to U.S. per capita income. There is a 5-6 quarter lag in results reported.
    
14. How is the money being spent?
    The grant period is 3 years—January 2008-December 2010. All money is to be spent during that period.
    Money will be spent in the following categories:
    

    Advanced Manufacturing Hub Nodes ($600K per county) Professional Development Dream It Do It personnel Mobile unit Healthcare simulation labs (stationary and two mobile units) BSN support Professional Development Healthcare Services Coordinator Hospitality/Tourism education pathway Person to work on planning EcO15 Coordinators ($300K per county) Endowment Marketing, Catch and referral, assessment, and placement Emerging Innovations Coordination Evaluation/continuous improvement Total

    $15,000,000 $6,000,000 $1,500,000 $1,200,000 $500,000 $3,000,000 $500,000 $350,000 $300,000 $300,000 $150,000 $3,000,000 $3,000,000 $1,750,000 $750,000 $500,000 $200,000 $38,000,000

    
15. Who manages the project?
    The Heritage Fund—The Community Foundation of Bartholomew County (Tracy Souza) and the Community Education Coalition (John Burnett) have program management, fiduciary oversight and support.
    The Executive Director is Dave Galle.
    The EcO15 Staff provides common support for the region.
    • Stephanie Weber, Communication & Outreach Coordinator
    • Bob Abrams, STEM Education and Regional Manufacturing Network Project Manager
    • Anissa Baker, Administrative Assistant

    The ten-member EcO15 Regional Council is governed by a federation model. The purpose of this group, consisting of one representative from each county, is to serve as the long-term sustainability group, focused on high-level initiatives of a regional nature that will have the most impact on the development of the regional learning system in support of the goals of EcO15.

    
16. What are the projects of the Healthcare Services portion of the grant?
    The Clinical Simulation Lab in Columbus provides high fidelity simulations for health care education programs.
    The Regional Clinical Simulation System (RCSS) will be strategically placed throughout the region and will provide education, training, and certification close to residence and/or employment.
    There will also be support for the ASN (Associate Degree in Nursing) to BSN (Bachelor Degree in Nursing) Program.
    
17. Who will be users of the lab and equipment?
    • All hospitals in the Southeast Indiana Healthcare Consortium
    • High Schools
    • Post secondary schools
    • Career Technical Centers
    • Other healthcare providers as appropriate
    
18. What types of programs will be offered?
    • Nursing
    • Paramedics
    • Medical records
    • Medical assisting
    • Hospital checklists, re-certifications
    • Physicians and teams
    
19. What are the outcomes?
    • Number of ASN graduates will increase by 15% per year for the next three years
    • Number of BSN graduates will increase from 15 in 2007 to 40 by 2010
    • Increase in percent utilization of SIM mobile units throughout the region.
    • Increase in critical thinking skills of healthcare professionals as measured by the Assessment Technologies Institute certification.
    • Allied health professionals’ training and employment measures.
    
20. What is the role of County Coordinators?
    To facilitate partnerships between education, manufacturing, health care, tourism/hospitality and the communities in their county.
    Sample programs and activities could include:
    • Educator Externships
    • Business Plan competition
    • Industry to school day
    • Job shadowing opportunities
    • Tours, speakers
    • School newspaper articles
    • MSSC
    • Marketing/promotional materials
    • TAG grants
    • Work with incumbent workers
    The Coordinators work closely with Dream It Do It High School Champions at each school. Dream It Do It Champions are single point of contact for each High School in the region.
    
21. What is the fiscal year for EcO15 Participants?
    The grant was originally provided on 12/7/07. LEI expects 2 reports per year: June 30th & December 31st each year of the grant (2008, 2009, 2010). For reporting purposes, County reports are due by mid May and mid November to meet the deadlines to Lilly Endowment.
    Each County’s fiscal year begins with the first receipt of grant funds.
    
22. Are counties required to submit Advanced Manufacturing proposals for the entire $900,000 over the 3 year period?
    It was agreed that counties could submit proposals in 2 parts.
    • Part 1 is to include the hiring of the county coordinator and the support systems required to sustain the coordinator’s responsibilities for the duration of the grant period. We are asking that all Part 1 proposals be submitted by the end of June 2008.
    • Part 2 is to include the Advanced Manufacturing education infrastructure costs to establish the necessary programs in the county that align with the regional learning system for each of the 3 years. We are asking that Part 2 proposals be submitted in October 2008.
    
23. How will proposals be developed for the Healthcare education infrastructure?
    A Clinical Simulation Taskforce is being formed at the present time. There is representation from all seven hospitals in the region:
    Columbus Regional Hospital, Dearborn County Hospital, Decatur Memorial Hospital, King’s Daughter Hospital (Madison), Margaret Mary Hospital (Batesville), Schneck Medical Center (Seymour) and St. Vincent’s Jennings Hospital. Also included are representatives from educational institutions: C4, Southeast Career Center, Ivy Tech Region 10, Ivy Tech Region 11, and IUPUC.
    The taskforce will meet through the summer and early fall and make a collective proposal in October that will be reviewed by a Steering Committee of regional healthcare and educational leaders. The Community Education Coalition and the Heritage Fund-The Community Foundation of Bartholomew County will also review and approve the proposal.
    
24. Are the counties required to propose plans for all of the Part 2 funds at one time or can it be broken up into phases or segments?
    It is not necessary to request all the funds at one time.  County proposals can break up their proposals into "sub-parts" if that better suits their needs. 
    
25. Can Part 2 funds be applied to tuition, course fees, and the like for participating enrollees in Advanced Manufacturing courses offered by service providers like Ivy Tech, Amatrol, Southeastern Career Center or others?
    The objective of the EcO15 grant is to develop a sustainable regional learning infrastructure that brings learning opportunities closer to home. The Indiana Department of Education has approved the four courses included in the MSSC curriculum as sufficient to meet Core 40 requirements for secondary schools. It is to the advantage of students and adults to offer these classes at the secondary level. Post secondary institutions like Ivy Tech are designated as "certification centers" for students who want that credential. The effect of providing funds for tuition and the like is in effect granting scholarships. Lilly Endowment needs little help from us with scholarship projects.
    
26. Can EcO15 funds be applied to facility or equipment rental?
    Each case will have to be decided based on its own merit or need. It is a good idea to include in such a proposal what plans or options are available for sustaining the programs once EcO15 funds are expended. If such plans are considered viable, then it can be considered.
    
27. What about the Hospitality & Tourism initiative?
    As mentioned in #14 above, the grant includes $450,000 for the 3 years to examine this economic cluster in Region 9 and develop recommendations. A core team led by Jeanne Robinson, EcO15 Hospitality/Tourism Coordinator, has recently been formed. The first meeting of this committee occured in July of 2008.