Smaller Indiana : Investor/Sponsor Presentation & Book

Smaller Indiana is a business and social networking platform with a simple premise: to make people and innovative ideas easier to find. With a membership base spanning 50 U.S. states and 27 countries around the world, Smaller Indiana exists to bring global awareness of the vast array of individuals, ideas and opportunities that exist in the state of Indiana.

At the end of its very successful launch year, Smaller Indiana approached Kristian Andersen + Associates to develop a strategy for generating financial commitments to support the next phase of its maturation and growth.

An approach was needed to identify and articulate the economic and cultural value that Smaller Indiana provides to the region, and to clearly define why community and business leaders should have an interest in a successful Smaller Indiana.

Having been involved with Smaller Indiana since its inception, we already had a foundational knowledge of the organization’s mission and values. So when our team began this project, we approached the challenge by gathering case studies from stakeholders and members that would infer the impact that Smaller Indiana was having on local business. Our findings from these interviews served as the foundation for a wellcrafted conceptual framework, that was developed to highlight the big ideas that Smaller Indiana is built upon.

Moving forward with expressions of this framework, we produced a concise and compelling presentation that not only highlighted the past and present success of Smaller Indiana, but also articulated a clear road map for what it hopes to become in the future. To accompany the presentation, a printed book was designed to summarize the value and impact of the community – how it works, why it matters, and what it has accomplished. The presentation and accompanying book conveyed these big ideas, via a series of data visualizations and success stories centered around leading, local business figures.

Building on the success in its first year, Smaller Indiana has seen continued and consistent growth, its total members rising from 4,000 in December 2008 to over 7,000 in September 2009. Their series of catalytic events reached a new level with the recent Bigger Ideas conference, a testament to Smaller Indiana’s ability to bring the offline and online worlds together in an even bigger way.