Lilly Endowment announces new round of grants under GIFT Initiative for Indiana Community Foundations

December 16, 2024
Contact: Judith Cebula
317.916.7327 | cebulaj@lei.org

Lilly Endowment announces new round of grants under GIFT Initiative for Indiana Community Foundations

INDIANAPOLIS – Through the eighth phase of its Giving Indiana Funds for Tomorrow (GIFT) initiative, Lilly Endowment is awarding 30 grants totaling more than $171 million to support the efforts of community foundations and their partners throughout Indiana to strengthen quality of life for the people in the towns, cities, counties and regions they serve.

The grants, which range from $467,327 to $20 million, will fund a variety of projects and programs that are designed to address priorities driven by the interests and needs of local communities. They include neighborhood and downtown revitalization projects; affordable housing efforts; strengthened early childhood education offerings; the development and enhancement of trails and other outdoor recreation amenities; and improved delivery of social services, including mental health and substance use disorder treatment options.

“Community foundations are uniquely positioned to collaborate with public, business and nonprofit stakeholders and play vital leadership roles in helping to inspire and imagine a brighter future for their communities,” said Ronni Kloth, the Endowment’s vice president for community development. “These grants are the culmination of efforts to engage a broad cross section of community stakeholders in prioritizing communities’ needs and opportunities. We are pleased with the creative and collaborative approaches that community foundations have proposed to address these challenges and opportunities. The proposed programs and activities are compelling and hold great promise to enhance the quality of life in Indiana communities for years to come.”

In 2023, the Endowment invited community foundations serving all of Indiana’s 92 counties to participate in GIFT VIII, the latest round of its GIFT initiative. Under one component of GIFT VIII, the Endowment invited Indiana community foundations to apply for Community Leadership Grants to help them engage local stakeholders to develop and implement large-scale action plans that address high-priority community challenges and opportunities. Funding was available in a two-phase process: a non-competitive planning phase and a competitive implementation phase.

Community foundations that participated in the planning phase of GIFT VIII were eligible to seek implementation grants ranging from up to $5 million to as much as $20 million for strategic activities that address especially compelling needs in their communities. Through a highly competitive, two-stage process, each community foundation could seek funding for projects and programs in their own county and had the option to collaborate with community foundations in other counties to address shared priorities by participating in an additional joint/regional proposal. They could request funding amounts based on their county’s population or, for collaborative proposals, the combined population of a multi-county region.

See the list of Community Leadership Implementation Grants here.

After conducting research and outreach to a wide range of community stakeholders, community foundations prioritized a variety of projects and programs to improve the lives of Hoosiers. Community foundations submitted so many high-quality proposals that the Endowment’s board approved grants totaling more than $171 million, nearly tripling its original allocation of $60 million for these grants.

Implementation grants will fund an array of efforts designed under the leadership of the community foundations and their partners that will, among other things:

Expand a community center’s resources to holistically support individuals’ and families’ basic needs.
Construct a multi-use venue that will establish a permanent farmer’s market that will bring residents of diverse backgrounds together and provide them with increased access to healthy food.
Strengthen the quality and capacity of early childhood education programs throughout a 10-county region.
Establish a comprehensive strategy to address the need for quality affordable housing across a three-county region.
Support the development of a retreat and community center that will provide holistic services and support to military veterans in a four-county region.

Also through GIFT VIII, the Endowment awarded Matching Fund Grants on a non-competitive basis to help community foundations develop unrestricted assets and build their internal capacity to implement projects and programs that address community needs. Matching Fund Grants ranging from $100,000 to $15 million and totaling $133.8 million were approved earlier this year to community foundations representing all 92 counties.

Community foundations under GIFT Phase VIII could also apply for Board Engagement Grants totaling up to $9.2 million to encourage community foundation board participation and engagement by providing a $100,000 unrestricted grant opportunity to eligible community foundations demonstrating 100 percent board member giving. The Endowment anticipates awarding these grants in 2025.

When the Endowment launched the GIFT initiative in 1990, it recognized, as it does now, that community foundations have the local knowledge, expertise and relationships to engage with local stakeholders and lead communities in developing collaborative approaches and solutions to the significant local challenges and opportunities they help prioritize. At the beginning of GIFT, there were fewer than a dozen community foundations in Indiana. Today, there are 94 community foundations and affiliate funds making grants to support local charitable organizations in all of Indiana’s 92 counties. The combined assets of community foundations that have regularly participated in GIFT have grown from $100 million in 1990 to nearly $4.1 billion at the end of 2023. Learn more about the GIFT initiative here.

About Lilly Endowment
Lilly Endowment Inc. is an Indianapolis-based private foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly, Sr. and his sons Eli and J.K. Jr. through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. Although the gifts of stock remain a financial bedrock of the Endowment, it is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location. In keeping with the founders’ wishes, the Endowment supports the causes of community development, education and religion. The Endowment funds programs throughout the United States, especially in the field of religion, and maintains a special commitment to its founders’ hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana.