enFocus combatting brain drain in northern Indiana

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (Inside INdiana Business) — enFocus Inc. was started a decade ago to bring a greater entrepreneurial spirit to northern Indiana. The South Bend-based nonprofit, connects recent graduates with local organizations to tackle tough challenges while also focusing on its mission to attract, develop and retain talent in the region. Executive Director Andrew Wiand says the organization’s project-based model is designed to reduce brain drain by keeping talent in the state.

Wiand talked about the model and its impact in an interview on Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick. Click here to watch interview.

“We hire recent graduates as two-year innovation fellows, and we actually place them on projects in the community that are focused with regional organizations, and they get to work the leaders in these organizations to solve their toughest challenges,” said Wiand. “And…they get a percentage of time to work on either an entrepreneurial endeavor or a social program or a social issue that they might be passionate about.”

Wiand says the model brings benefits for the regional organizations with which it partners because they have assistance in solving real-world problems. He says that also serves as a vehicle for hiring.

“Our graduates are finding jobs and really, over 70% of them out of about 150 fellowships to date have stayed in the area,” he said.

The vision for enFocus over the next decade includes opportunity for growth, according to Wiand.

“Our vision is to be a national model for talent attraction and innovation,” he says. “How might we look at – in the next three to five years – Indiana as an opportunity? What other communities might we be seeking to grow. And, thinking nationally, we want to have good growth, but we want to be steady to our vision. So, maybe in 10 years, we’re even bolder.”