Focus Forward CI, the regional economic development organization, celebrated its one-year milestone July 30, 2013 at the Gateway Building in Peoria. The new comprehensive economic development strategy involves public-private partnerships with regional businesses and 5 counties in Central Illinois: Peoria, Mason, Logan, Woodford and Tazewell. Working together, Focus Forward CI will implement five S.M.A.R.T. goals within the next five years:

Creating 13,190 new jobs across the region (1,319 new jobs at $53,715/year and 11,841 new jobs at $48,832/year)

Improving the pay rate of more than 19,000 existing jobs by $5,000/year
Ramping up the attainment of bachelor and graduate degrees by 2,300 from the 2012 estimate of 68,719

Increasing the 25-to-44-year-old age bracket from 25 percent of total population to 30 percent by 2017; and

Increasing overall population to 386,475 by 2017, up from the 2010 estimate of 375,218.