AMBER BASSETT

THE IDEA:

Consulting services to local governments that improve quality of life

Stronger communities don’t happen by accident — they happen by design. Amber Bassett lives and breathes this philosophy in her work. The DeKalb County-based entrepreneur founded Hometown Initiatives LLC to do just that.

Leveraging education and experience, her two-person team offers community plans (comprehensive, park, neighborhood, strategic, etc.), ordinance adoptions and/or updates, administrative and grant writing services.

While a lot can be done remotely, HI LLC is currently focused on targeting communities in Northeast Indiana. The plan is to grow and provide services to all small-to-mid-sized communities throughout Indiana. Their clients typically consist of local government agencies but can include community advocate groups looking to improve their communities. In her words, it’s about helping them “get to the next step”— whatever that looks like. Amber and her team act as a guide to help stakeholders find their vision and voice in the process.

While each city or town has its own past and present to consider, these entities have a common thread: they’re looking for community-specific plans, documents and resources to build a foundation for a higher quality of life. According to Amber, this is a relatively unsaturated market and this represents an opportunity.  Being involved in the Indiana Chapter for American Planning Association, they’ve noticed an increased need for planning consultants for several services, especially staff support and grant authoring. Case and point: After launching our website and LinkedIn pages within the last month and a half, they’ve seen 70 website visitors and have gained 36 followers on LinkedIn.

Looking to the future, Amber said they intend to create interactive content through the Indiana APA ListServe group and on LinkedIn to pique interest further. The grant funds will help them market through this channel and hopefully gain new clients.