People You Need to Know: Allison Cash

Allison Cash has spent her first two months not merely settling in as the first full-time director of a regional nonprofit created in 2024. She’s also making moves to position the organization for success.

Leaders for Ozarks Region Evolvement convenes business and civic leaders from throughout southwest Missouri to focus on three core priorities: workforce attraction, community quality of life and regional identity.

The LORE concept began with a Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce Community Leadership Visit to northwest Arkansas in 2022. LORE is patterned after a similar organization, the Northwest Arkansas Council, which has shaped its region’s development for more than three decades. 

In March 2025, LORE announced it had secured nearly $500,000 from 18 investor organizations. Cash said opportunities remain to get involved, and there are different levels of investment, though they are typically $25,000 per year.

For now, Cash is the sole staffer and serves a 16-member board.

As an organization that deals with identity, LORE must first define its own terms, and that’s where Cash has focused her early efforts.

“I think it’s truly being a facilitator and a convener of a lot of great work that’s happening, but a lot of that work happens within boundaries and jurisdictions,” she said. “LORE came to life because there wasn’t an umbrella that could do some of the bigger projects without those constraints.”

Cash said the first project she’s tackling is working on a regional identity that can provide cohesiveness to LORE’s efforts. Some people talk about regionalism but refer to the Ozarks or southwest Missouri or even just Springfield.

“It’s more than Springfield – and there’s an opportunity for us to all have similar language,” she said.

Next up for Cash is a focus on workforce attraction and retention, which she said is one of the key focus areas for board members. 

Cash said the board’s work is about bringing people together for a strategic vision and to add to what is already being done. 

“We’ve been very successful, but no community can be successful isolated or alone. We really can be stronger together,” she said. 

Cash added that the region is experiencing exciting forward motion. “There are so many good things happening, and this is just adding to that.”

Most LORE members are employers throughout the region, Cash said, so they already understand the basics of a regional identity.

“The region is the lived experience,” she said. “People live in different places already as a regional citizen.”

They might shop in one place, work in another and spend leisure time somewhere else.

“This is what we all do as a region, but we don’t identify it that way,” she said.

Cash said marketing is about having a consistent language and a consistent value proposition.

She added that regionalism is a proven strategy for marketing an area holistically and consistently. Coalitions led by the private sector have come together in various places – northwest Arkansas, the greater Kansas City area, the Piedmont in North Carolina and countless others, many of which have existed for decades.

“It’s not a new concept; we just haven’t done it here in this way, and that’s why LORE was formed,” she said. “Ultimately, the business leaders saw a need for it.”

Cash said she has heard people express the notion that LORE is getting a late start.

“They ask if we’re behind,” she said. “No, we’re not behind, because we’re starting now. The future is now, and what we’re doing is looking around that corner to get the region positioned to continue to be successful.”

Cash said LORE is an active organization, and her role is also an active one.

“I was brought on to get some things done,” she said. “This is not a public relations position. I’m here to start projects, scope things out and figure out where we sit in the ecosystem.”

Cash said she enjoys being busy, and she also enjoys the service her position entails. She added that her philosophy is never to leave a room without finding something to do for somebody.

“That’s what stuck with me my entire life. It can be something small and personal, or sometimes it’s something more meaningful,” she said. “That’s what connects us all – the small gestures that end up being the bigger things.”

Right now, Cash is focused on evaluating responses to a request for quotes from identity consultant candidates. A native of the region, she is quick to note that identity is not a marketing strategy.

“I see it as a lived regional experience,” she said. “It’s culture, history, geology and so much more. You have to find the unique threads to make a beautiful regional knot.”