Talent attraction and retention is a high priority for city officials, organization executives, higher education, and community organizations in the South Bend Elkhart Region. It is no question that people truly care and are invested in making the South Bend-Elkhart region the best place to live, work, and play. We have seen great strides of improvement over the past 5 years, however, we believe there is additional opportunity to improve the “stickiness” factor and accelerate these initiatives in the region.

Once an organization has incentivized someone to move to the region, there need to be various organizations working together to retain talent. Today more than ever, people crave human connection. As Kurt Vonnegut argues, “the most pervasive American disease is loneliness”. People stay in a region if they develop friendships, get involved in the community, and have access to an abundance of engaging activities and experiences.

Connect 574’s focus is to help individuals find their "home" through intentional connection.

Connect 574 is in the early stages of testing the idea and concept with members of the community. There are four key pillars to our business we are in the process of testing:
1) unique Connect 574 experiences
2) special access to events in the region
3) member portal,
4) Connect 574 member card

At the moment we have hosted (2) Connect 574 experiences. We had 100% attendance from registrants and each attendee met someone new.

Our ultimate goal is to establish a membership model that will provide perks to different activities and opportunities. We believe it’s important to develop a base of raving fans and add value to individuals today to understand the value they see in Connect 574. We’d like to approach local corporations and organizations to include a Connect 574 membership into their onboarding kits for new employees to help them establish their “home” in the South Bend-Elkhart region with intentional connection.