Marion council backs staff to pursue regional talent-attraction pilot, requests programming of $47,000

Marion City Council on Tuesday heard an update on the Collaborative Growth Initiative from Jody Schafer of the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance and gave staff direction to bring back a formal proposal and program an additional $47,000 in city funds for the initiative.

The presentation described a two-pronged, three-year talent-attraction strategy that includes launching a regional talent website and piloting MakeMyMove, an online program that markets communities to remote workers and tracks moves. “My name is Jody Schafer, and I'm the director of talent attraction, which is managing the collaborative growth initiative,” Schafer told the council.

The initiative grew from a regional review that found population decline and out‑migration of college‑educated young professionals; Schafer cited a regional loss of roughly 8,200 residents since 2021 and said employers are already reporting workforce gaps. The Alliance has hired a marketing firm and recommends both a talent-website build and a MakeMyMove pilot as “quick win” strategies that can produce measurable relocations.

Schafer told the council that first‑year city contributions were laid out earlier in regional discussions: Cedar Rapids $327,500, Marion $87,000 and Hiawatha $21,600. For Marion specifically, the packet for the fiscal year beginning July 1 already includes $40,000; Schafer and city staff said the initiative team is requesting an additional $47,000 to be programmed now and returned to council as a formal agenda item for approval. “In the first year, Cedar Rapids will contribute $327,500, Marion $87,000, and Hiawatha $21,600,” Schafer said. She also described MakeMyMove’s ability to verify moves and reported a roughly 90% retention rate in the first year among participating movers.

Council members asked technical and policy questions about MakeMyMove, including how the program works, what incentives might be offered to recruits, and whether the state has adopted a similar approach. Schafer said the State of Iowa had been approached about MakeMyMove and was “intrigued” but had not committed funding, in part because of concerns about showing favoritism toward specific communities. Councilmembers also asked about target occupations; Schafer said advanced manufacturing engineers and health care roles were consistently identified as high‑demand occupations in regional forecasting.

City staff asked the council for a consensus to proceed with staff work on the proposal. No final appropriation vote was taken Tuesday; the council chair summarized that staff had direction to draft a formal proposal and return it for a future vote. “I think you have your direction,” the chair said after discussion.

If the council approves the programmed funds at a future meeting, the Alliance plans a soft launch of the talent website in December and ongoing marketing and recruitment activities across years two and three, with private fundraising expected to cover larger shares in later years.