The Indiana Economic Development Corporation recently announced a $30 million award for the South Central Indiana Talent Region.

This award, one of the best per capita in the state, is intended to serve as the maximum amount available for funding for the next round of READI 2.0 projects that are identified from the areas of Bartholomew, Jackson and Jennings counties and the town of Edinburgh.

The team will submit a collective application later this year that includes a plan on how to invest the $30 million award to help the region grow several elements, including population, employment opportunities, per capita income and community assets.

The LEI Program, an initiative funded by Lilly Endowment Inc. and focused on arts and culture and blight reduction, will also offer a round of funding simultaneously to READI 2.0. That program will evaluate funding requests from across the state on a case-by-case basis. Each region, however, is limited in the total and type of projects they can submit for consideration by LEI. Any local awards from the Lilly program will be in addition to the $30 million award maximum for the three-county region.

Considering the current award from the IEDC and because the LEI funding program detail has just been released, the local team has created an online project collector to gather project ideas from the public to be evaluated for consideration in both the final READI 2.0 submission and for the LEI submission.

Anyone who wishes to submit a project for consideration can do so between now and 5 p.m. May 2 using the online collector.

The link to the online project collector and details may be found on the SCITR READI website at southcentralreadi.com.