Print edition: 
Three Wichita organizations have landed a $125,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to develop the region’s “quality of talent, place and opportunity.”
Visioneering Wichita, Young Professionals of Wichita and the Wichita Downtown Development Corp. plan to leverage the Knight money with another $82,000 of in-kind services to collaborate on a plan to define the Wichita area’s short-term priorities.
The grant was announced Wednesday afternoon by the three groups, along with officials from the Wichita Community Foundation and the Knight Foundation.
“We’ve done several city-to-city visits, and I think we’ve gained knowledge and came back with some great ideas on what to do,” said Suzie Ahlstrand, executive director of Visioneering Wichita.
“After the Pittsburgh visit in September, there was a large consensus in the group to look at the three things we’d like to get done in the next three years. To the credit of the Mayor (Carl Brewer) and Dave Unruh of Sedgwick County, they wrote Visioneering a letter ... asking us to do something over the next six to eight months to help understand the priorities of our regional community.”
So, the three groups designed a one-page, multi-faceted plan to gauge community input on those priorities, using the WDDC’s Design and Innovation Center downtown and YPW’s membership as key resources. YPW officials will create and maintain a database of internship and career opportunities to attract talent, along with gauging younger Wichitans’ thoughts on future priorities.
At the WDDC, the grant money will be used to expand the annual lecture into a week-long series of events, involving lecturers, national developers, and to create a multi-disciplinary internship for college students to work directly with downtown development prospects.
One of the major planks of the WDDC plan is to bring national developers to Wichita, to pitch development opportunities and to exhibit the city’s collaboration for downtown growth.
“Continuing to bring the national developers in to keep them aware of what’s going on in Wichita is important,” said Jeff Fluhr, president of the WDDC. “With the annual lecture, that has the opportunity to become a much greater event, a multi-day engagement.”
Beyond the database work, YPW’s mission will be outreach, said director Heather Denker.
“It’s a priority for us going forward to step out into the community and make sure we’re partnering with these kinds of organizations to delve into community change,” she said. “Visioneering has its process, and this is our opportunity to take their process and take it to those within our demographic and make sure we’re getting feedback from the younger generations.”
