A Decade of Impact, A Roadmap for the Future
Columbus Ahead is the next chapter of a regional effort that’s been building since 2014, sharpened by more than a decade of learning what works when a community decides to work in collaboration.
HISTORY
From Columbus 2025 to Columbus Ahead
Columbus 2025 didn't just produce a plan, it changed how this region works. Before 2014, organizations across Greater Columbus largely worked in silos, each pursuing its own goals independently. Columbus 2025 built something different: a shared expectation that major goals get tackled together, across sectors, with RPI as the connective tissue holding it all in motion.
That shift is what made Columbus Ahead possible. The same backbone organization, the same collaborative instinct - now paired with a sharper focus on accountability: nine partners co-owning nine goals, tracked publicly against a five-year timeline.
Timeline
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Public, private, and nonprofit leaders from across Greater Columbus came together to build the region's first comprehensive Community and Economic Development Strategic Plan. Early research included visits to cities like Austin and Nashville - regions that had shown what a shared, collaborative plan could do for growth and prosperity. Out of this process, the Regional Prosperity Initiative (RPI) was formed - the same backbone organization that leads Columbus Ahead today.
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RPI engaged Market Street to study the region's demographic, economic, and quality-of-life indicators - uncovering the strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities that would shape everything that followed.
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The second phase of research identified which industry sectors held the greatest potential to grow jobs and wealth across the region in the years ahead.
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Findings from both research phases came together into a five-year community and economic development strategy - a consensus blueprint for raising prosperity across the region.
Read the Regional Community & Economic Development Strategy →
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Strategy became action: lead implementers, key partners, costs, timelines, and success metrics were assigned to every recommendation.
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With a strategy and implementation plan in place, the region got to work. Over the next eight years, Columbus 2025 moved from blueprint to action - funding programs, launching initiatives, and proving that cross-sector collaboration wasn't just a planning exercise, but a way of getting things done. From workforce readiness to public space to economic development, the results touched nearly every corner of the region.
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Building directly on what Columbus 2025 established, Columbus Ahead 2026–2030 launched with nine implementing partners and RPI as backbone - sharper, more accountable, and built for measurable progress against Jobs, Talent, and Place.
Built Together. Six wins made possible by one shared commitment.
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The Basics Chattahoochee Valley
EARLY CHILDHOOD LEARNING
The Basics Chattahoochee Valley, Georgia’s first Basics community, was launched through Columbus 2025 and is led by United Way of the Chattahoochee Valley, alongside parents and community partners. Its goal is for every child to start kindergarten ready to learn and read at grade level by third grade. The campaign equips parents and caregivers with five science-based principles, from “Talk, Sing, and Point” to “Read and Discuss Stories,” delivered through community toolkits and twice-weekly text messages from birth. It is an affiliate of The Basics Learning Network, rooted in Harvard’s Achievement Gap Initiative.
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Choose Columbus Brand
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BRANDING
For years, economic development in Columbus lived under the Chamber of Commerce - with no distinct brand of its own to compete for jobs and investment. Columbus 2025 changed that: RPI helped finance Choose Columbus's first-ever marketing campaign and website, developed with Golden Shovel, giving the region's economic development effort its own voice and identity. That work laid the groundwork for Choose Columbus to become its own independent organization - now one of Columbus Ahead's nine implementing partners. -
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Columbus Remote
REMOTE WORKER TALENT INCENTIVE PROGRAM
Columbus Remote is RPI's answer to a national shift: skilled workers who can live anywhere. Partnering with MakeMyMove, an online marketplace connecting move-ready talent with welcoming communities, Columbus became the first city in Georgia to join the platform. The program offers an incentive package designed to attract remote workers to the region - turning Columbus's affordability and quality of life into a competitive advantage for talent attraction. Today, Columbus Remote is a direct contributor to Columbus Ahead's prime-age workforce growth goal.
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Move to Meaningful
TALENT ATTRACTION CAMPAIGN
Columbus 2025 engaged Jackson Spalding to help tell the region's story - attracting talent, growing the population, and building a sustainable workforce to make Columbus more competitive. The team completed a Foundational Research and Discovery phase: a comprehensive brand audit, competitor analysis, third-party research, and the JSX storytelling process. The result was Move to Meaningful, a campaign built on a clear, compelling case for why talented people should choose Columbus - equipping the region with a story it could finally tell with confidence. -
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Painted Spaces Project
PUBLIC ART PROGRAM
The Painted Spaces Project commissioned community-inspired murals across areas of the Chattahoochee Valley with limited access to public art. Partnering with local artists, Dragonfly Trail Network, and Columbus State University, the project brought meaningful art to streetscapes, plazas, buildings, and schools throughout the region. By putting public art directly into the hands of the community, Painted Spaces built more than murals - it built pride that connects neighbors to each other and to where they live. -
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StartUP Columbus
ENTREPRENEUR INCUBATOR
Born from Columbus 2025's Enterprising Culture action area, StartUP Columbus launched as the region's entrepreneurial support organization and startup incubator. Located in the heart of Uptown, it connects entrepreneurs with the human, financial, and professional resources needed to turn ideas into businesses. Today, StartUP Columbus continues cultivating a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem - and stands as one of Columbus Ahead's nine implementing partners, carrying that original mission forward. Its vision remains the same: business ownership as a real possibility for every resident of the Chattahoochee Valley.
