INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana Grown, the marketing platform operated by the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, has built a highly effective model to deliver high-impact learning directly to its independent producers. The initiative currently supports just over 1,700 businesses spanning all 92 counties in the state.

Housed directly within the state’s agricultural infrastructure, the program balances brand promotion with the nuts-and-bolts of small business development.

“We promote products that are grown, raised, processed, and packaged in the state,” said Caroline Patrick, Indiana Grown program director. “What we do is not only promote their businesses to customers and buyers and to wholesale chefs and retailers that want to be able to provide local products to their customers, but we also provide some educational materials... one of those being the monthly educational webinars.”

Managing a statewide presence of this scale is no small feat, yet Indiana Grown operates with a lean leadership team of just two people. “There are two of us. So, it’s myself as the program director, then Angela Grant is our operations specialist. So, there are two of us that oversee the programs in the state,” Patrick noted.

The webinars were originally envisioned as a standard, once-a-month educational series. However, that schedule quickly expanded due to surging member demand and a surplus of critical subject matter.

“We started them in January of this year, and they’ve been going really well,” Patrick said. “The goal was to host one a month, but we’ve found so many great subject matters to be able to offer that we’re hosting about two a month.”

Pulling this off requires a heavy reliance on professional volunteers and meticulous backstage preparation.

“We haven’t had to pay anyone yet, which has been lovely,” Patrick said. “They’ve all been generously donating their time... We spent maybe a handful of hours brainstorming topics and brainstorming possible presenters, and then each one probably takes two to three hours of logistics... It’s always important that we prepare the presenter as much as possible for making this as robust a content and conversation for the attendees as we can.”

The pivot from traditional, all-day in-person events to a nimble digital platform was ultimately driven by the demanding daily schedules of the farmers themselves.

“We always heard that whenever we host in-person events, it’s hard for folks to get away from their farm or away from their business for a full seven or eight hours, including travel time,” Patrick explained. “It’s hard for a lot of our businesses; they’re obviously very busy entrepreneurs, and it’s hard for them to get away from their business for a full day. So, it’s just another opportunity for us to still tap in and provide the education and resources, but in just a different format.”

Taking the series online also flattened geographic barriers, opening the door for broader statewide participation.

“We used to host – and had in the past hosted – an in-person educational event, but switched to virtual for just logistics and the ability to host different topics and to have members from all over the state to be able to participate,” Patrick said.

The resulting curriculum covers a wide technical spectrum tailored to the shifting regulatory and financial hurdles of a growing agribusiness. After launching early this year with market trends and agritourism, the series moved into digital marketing, navigating SBA resources, and tapping into regional entrepreneurial networks.

“They range from anywhere – the one that you attended with marketing and communications – to we’ve had regulatory, Department of Health join and host a conference, to small business development and just kind of all those different avenues that small businesses really need,” Patrick said.

One such session, focusing on marketing and social media mechanics, was led by Nicole Driscoll, an entrepreneurial ecosystem navigator with the Indiana Small Business Development Center.

Driscoll focused her advice on email, social media and collaborative marketing, challenging producers to lean into authenticity. “Because that’s what people want to hear,” she said. “Using short-form videos so that you could show and tell your story, because stories build trust with your consumers. You can also use things like polls or countdowns or Q&As on your social media so that you encourage feedback.”

Looking ahead, Driscoll plans to keep collaborating with Indiana Grown on future co-designed programming. “I’m going to be reaching back out to Angela just to get some more topics that are front of mind that their group is interested in learning more about, so that we can get things a little bit more honed in,” she said.

Beyond state lines, Indiana Grown regularly syncs with regional and national networks to swap best practices and maximize their footprint.

“It’s really great to have partners throughout the Midwest to be able to share the different aspects of the programs, and we have a quarterly call that we do, or we participate in from a Midwest region,” Patrick said. “There is an opportunity to collaborate with all of their marketing programs throughout the country at an annual convention and other events throughout the year.”

The upcoming slate of presentations will dive deep into operational mechanics, including strategies for selling food to local schools, contingency risk planning, and leveraging Purdue University’s specialized “HortCalculator” tool for data-driven crop decisions.

The webinar series runs through December.

For more information visit www.indianagrown.org