Leaders of the initiative tasked with attracting talent to the Peoria area say the effort is producing some tangible results.
“We’re happy to report that Peoria’s population has grown for the first time in years; it’s up 3.86%,” said Laura Cullinan, president of the Gilmore Foundation, one of the local organizations spearheading the Choose Greater Peoria campaign.
“We’ve had over 4,000 people come through our website, fill out a form and express interest in Peoria. These are people for whom they had not maybe heard of Peoria, didn’t know anything about it until they saw some of the Choose Greater Peoria materials that influenced them to fill out this form and go through our website.”
Cullinan says when the initiative launched, there were more than 12,000 professional positions that needed to be filled. She says they’ve had 20 confirmed direct hires, with another 300 more hirings influenced by their materials, and they’ve received 500 resumes from individuals thinking of relocating to the area for a career opportunity.
“Our goals were talent attraction, number one, and then number two was sort of enhancing and articulating Peoria’s brand outside the area, and then with internal positive Peoria messaging,” said Cullinan. “We all know that where we live isn’t perfect, where anyone lives isn’t perfect. But it’s amplifying the positive stories and the positive voices in the area to really lean into all the great things that we have here.”
Cullinan says one positive they’re touting is a recent U.S. News & World Report ranking that placed Peoria at No. 82 on its list of 150 best cities in the country, based on livability characteristics – making it the only city in Illinois among the top 100.
“It’s a beautiful place; it’s a very high quality of life,” she said. “This is going to sound cheesy, but it’s the people. Peoria is a warm, welcoming place, attracting all types of people. They’ll welcome you and you can be part of the community. If you choose to be involved, you can get involved and hit the ground running.”
As a way to help spread the reach of Choose Greater Peoria’s message, they have partnered with Livability Media to produce and release a new print and digital magazine to showcase the region’s positive aspects.
“(What) employers are telling us is the materials that we’ve provided have been invaluable. It’s helping them with relocation (and) it’s helping them sell Peoria,” said Cullinan. “That was one of the things that the businesses told us at the outset – like OSF (HealthCare), Carle (Health), Caterpillar. They said, ‘we don’t have trouble selling our business, but we’re having trouble selling Peoria.’ So we created a suite of materials to show people what we have to offer here.”
Cullinan says during the first year of Choose Greater Peoria, they targeted their messages toward larger cities across the Midwest, such as Chicago, St. Louis, Indianapolis and Milwaukee. She says they’ll likely stick with that strategy because it’s easier to attract professionals that already have interests in the Midwest.
“We’re going to kind of double down on the ‘There’s More Here’ messaging, and we're going to continue the internal positive Peoria messaging in this area,” she said. “We’re still working on the talent attraction; we're not going to abandon this playbook that we’ve created.
“We’ve sort of built this engine and it's working, so we aren't really going to make any big changes in 2025. We hope to have even more investor companies on board, and we hope to see that the population has grown next year even more.”
Cullinan says Choose Greater Peoria’s contract with Livability Media runs for two years, so a second magazine will be produced in 2025. Print versions of the first issue are available at businesses and community locations throughout the area, and a digital version can be accessed at livability.com/greater-peoria.
“We’ll have over 7,500 of the print materials available, and they’re in places like the (Peoria International) Airport and the (Peoria) Civic Center, Louisville Slugger (Sports Complex), restaurants and coffee shops all over town,” said Cullinan. “This isn’t meant to replace Peoria Magazine; it can’t replace Peoria Magazine. But it’s an evergreen publication where we can showcase what we have to offer.”
