Lilly Endowment Inc. awards $7.5 million to Community Foundation of Elkhart County
The Community Foundation of Elkhart County has received a grant of $7.5 million from Lilly Endowment Inc. through the Community Leadership Implementation Grants component of the eighth phase of its Giving Indiana Funds for Tomorrow (GIFT VIII) initiative. This is one of 30 implementation grants being awarded through GIFT VIII, a statewide Lilly Endowment initiative designed to support the efforts of community foundations and their partners to strengthen the quality of life for the people in the towns, cities, counties, and regions they serve.
With the grant, the Community Foundation will support and grow the work of Building Strong Brains, Elkhart County’s early childhood initiative launched in 2022. The Community Foundation and numerous community partners are working to strengthen a system supporting children under age 6 and the families who raise them so that every child is ready to learn and thrive in kindergarten.
Early childhood development is one of the most critical periods of time that defines the life outcome for a human being, and the correlation is strong between kindergarten readiness and all other academic progress,” said Dr. Pete McCown, president of the Community Foundation. “If we can do work to make sure that they're ready to be successful and thrive when they enter the doors of a structured school experience, we can make a real difference in the lives of children in Elkhart County.”
The community has been coming together to join the coalition, which is changing the county’s approach to early childhood development. Eleven organizational sponsors are helping guide the work. Action teams are focused on community supports for children and families, quality child care and early learning environments, and maternal and child health. Dr. Kim Boynton will provide leadership as the Building Strong Brains coalition director.
This is the largest gift from Lilly Endowment Inc. in the Community Foundation’s history. Support from Elkhart County donors was a key factor in securing the gift and resulted in additional funding for the Tolson Center for Community Excellence and the Fund for Elkhart County at the Community Foundation. GIFT VIII resulted in a total of $11.5 million of investment in Elkhart County. In addition, the Community Foundations of Elkhart, St. Joseph, and Marshall Counties are receiving $20 million from GIFT VIII to establish a regional housing trust and land bank.
In 1990, Lilly Endowment launched the Giving Indiana Funds for Tomorrow (GIFT) initiative to help establish and further develop community foundations throughout Indiana. Lilly Endowment hoped that Indiana’s community foundations could enhance the quality of life in their communities by convening conversations among people of diverse ages, socioeconomic backgrounds, occupations, races, and cultural traditions about their communities’ most compelling needs and opportunities and the best ways to address them.