Corinne Becknell-Lucas to Take the Helm of NICF

The Northern Indiana Community Foundation will have a new executive director at the end of April. Current Associate Director Corinne Becknell Lucas is taking over the helm then from Jay Albright, who’s retiring. She will begin the transition to her new role in January, overseeing the organization serving Fulton, Miami and Starke counties. Becknell Lucas is originally from Bourbon and graduated from Triton High School in 1980. She also has as associate degree in liberal arts from Ivy Tech Community College and has obtained a certification from the Indiana University Indianapolis Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Becknell Lucas moved to Starke County in 1998, marrying her husband Martin Lucas then. Prior to starting work for the NICF in 2002, she helped start the contemporary music program at Celebration United Methodist Church in Winona Lake; did media production for several places, including for early internet programming with the National Press Club and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; and was employed at Martin’s Lucas Law Office.

Becknell Lucas said it was a friend of her husband’s that got her to work for NICF.

“She said, ‘I think you would be really great for this position (of Starke County Community Foundation director),’” said Becknell Lucas. “I hadn’t lived in Starke County that long, but it really gave me an opportunity to really understand what was going on in the community and the people as well and all of the good works that they do.”

By taking the job, Becknell Lucas said she became the first Starke County Community Foundation employee for the NICF.
She said she came on a time of transition: Cass County, which was originally part of the NICF, left to have its own community foundation and Pulaski County did the same not long thereafter.

The NICF’s main office also moved from Logansport to Rochester. From 2004 to 2011, Becknell Lucas was scholarship coordinator for the NICF. She started working in program management for the NICF in 2004, which she currently does in addition to being associate director, which she took on in 2016. Becknell Lucas said she’s stayed in nonprofit management because “you get to see so many people and help them in so many different ways.”

“We can see a program that started from just from an idea … blossom,” she said, adding working for a community foundation is also about connecting donors to causes they care about. “We all kind of work together on our small communities,” said Becknell Lucas.

She noted working for community foundations in more rural areas does present some challenges.

“We’d always like to have more money, but just starting at the beginning, just knowing that people had said over 25 years ago we’ll never be able to raise enough money to have an endowment and now we do,” she said. “I have great shoes to follow in and just to continue incorporating all of the county directors together in the choices that we make here at the community foundation,” said Becknell Lucas of Albright.

When she’s not at work, Becknell Lucas enjoys playing music with her husband in the group Return to Normal. They’ve performed in Indianapolis, Culver and locally at The Times Theater in Rochester.

The couple plays guitar and played the keyboard in the past. Becknell Lucas also enjoys knitting in her spare time. She has two children. Her son Dustan Bradley is married to Beth Bradley with two daughters, C.C. and Spencer. She also has a daughter, Lissa Silotto, who is married to T.J. Silotto with a son, Bruno. Her daughter has followed in her career footsteps, working here at IPA!