The Indianapolis Foundation Awards Over $1.5 Million into Community

The Indianapolis Foundation’s board of directors has approved grants and investments for Marion County not-for-profits, projects and initiatives totaling $1,694,682.

The Indianapolis Foundation, an affiliate of Central Indiana Community Foundation (CICF), awarded $794,642 in responsive grants and directed $186,040 to investment plans and opportunity funds. Additionally, The Indianapolis Foundation Library Fund granted $86,000.

“These investments support our commitment to making ours a community where everyone has access to the opportunity needed to reach their full potential, regardless of their place, race or identity,” said Tamara Winfrey-Harris, vice president of community leadership and effective philanthropy. “We do this by supporting not-for-profits doing a good job in Indianapolis. Now, through a critical equity framework. And we continue to advance our work in economic mobility, family stabilization, criminal justice reform and violence reduction, neighborhood empowerment and placemaking, dismantling institutional racism and other key areas that all work collectively towards strengthening our community.”

Some of the organizations receiving support include:

National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR) ($100,000) – NICJR will support The Indianapolis Foundation’s violent crime prevention program grantees with a series of trainings and coaching of best practices and techniques to support high-risk youth and young adults connected with gun violence within their organizations.

Hoosier Environmental Council ($35,000) – Hoosier Environmental Council empowers local communities who have felt marginalized, over the decades, by their elected, civic, and business leaders with regard to environmental issues.

The Indianapolis Public Library ($25,000)–The Indianapolis Public Library (IndyPL), in partnership with The Polis Center at IUPUI, is developing the Digital Encyclopedia of Indianapolis (DEOI) as a legacy product of the bicentennial. The DEOI will include a focus on the state of race and race relations in Indianapolis and Central Indiana. With a community-based approach, this retrospective will address critical race and race relations questions.

SEE BELOW FOR FULL LIST OF INITIATIVES AND GRANTS FUNDED

During this grant round, The Indianapolis Fund directed $699,642 to responsive grants for 21 different organizations. These grants align with the foundation’s five community leadership initiatives for Marion County: family stabilization, economic mobility, criminal justice reform, neighborhood empowerment and placemaking, and dismantling systemic racism. Additionally, field-of-interest funds with The Indianapolis Foundation contributed $95,000. These field-of-interest funds are created by donors who wish to support a specific organization or cause beyond their lifetime and stewarded by The Indianapolis Foundation in fulfilling the donor’s intent. During this round of funding Brown Fund and James Proctor Fund for Aged Men and Women provided support.

The Indianapolis Foundation Library fund awarded $714,000 to benefit the Indianapolis library community, including to the Marion County Internet Library and three initiatives aligned with CICF’s mission to dismantle institutional racism: racial equity training for Library Fund partners, expanding access to BIPOC literature in Indianapolis public schools, and bicentennial retrospective on race and race relations in Central Indiana.

THE INDIANAPOLIS FOUNDATION GRANT ALLOCATIONS