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About the Northeast Ohio Economic Dashboard

The Fund for Our Economic Future sponsors the Dashboard economic research to help guide its work to strengthen the economic competitiveness of Northeast Ohio. The Fund uses the Dashboard to identify the key factors tied to economic growth and assess how the region is performing in those factors. The Fund uses the Dashboard research to guide its grantmaking and to educate policy-makers regarding the steps that need to be taken to strengthen the region's economic competitiveness.

The methodology used in developing the Dashboard is noteworthy in that it yields indicators that reflect the key features of the underlying process of economic growth in the region. Basing the Dashboard indicators on such a methodology sets them apart from those created for other regions.  Too often, indicators that are interesting and seemingly useful are assembled into a reporting system with the idea that the user can pick and choose.  Stakeholders have little way of knowing which indicators track key factors in the region's economic development process.  The Dashboard indicators, on the other hand, are constructed from the viewpoint of "less is more." We include only those indicators that closely relate to regional economic growth and that are critical for understanding and tracking the regional growth process. The Fund for Our Economic Future hopes to guide the thinking of policymakers and others on how to spur Northeast Ohio's economy.

The Dashboard was produced by a group of economists engaged by the fund to explain and track the factors that work to strengthen the region's growth. The initial study, completed by Randall Eberts,  George Erickcek, and Jack Kleinhenz in 2006, laid the foundation for the methodology and produced the first estimates.  Ziona Austrian, Iryna Lendel, and Afia Yamoah updated the framework and estimates in 2007.

Read more about the report's methodology here.

About the Fund for Our Economic Future

The Fund for Our Economic Future unites philanthropy in Northeast Ohio to strengthen the region's economic competitiveness through grantmaking, research and civic engagement.

The Fund collaborates with others in the 16-county region to improve the region's economic competitiveness in four action areas:

The Fund's members have raised more than $50 million since 2004. The majority of the Fund's charitable grants support nonprofit, regional economic development organizations. The Fund also supports research, such as the Dashboard, that is used to guide the region's economic development efforts and measure the region's economic performance. The Fund's civic engagement efforts bring together a wide variety of people, organizations and institutions to accelerate the development and implementation of regional approaches to economic development throughout the 16 counties that make up Northeast Ohio.