Client Story

We were honored to work with 25 counties across the state of Indiana as they took on the incredible challenge and opportunity to better understand and address the needs and aspirations of all the residents of their communities.

There has been a trend in philanthropy as more foundations are stepping into a “convener” role to tackle big social issues. Community foundations are natural conveners. They oversee charitable funds and manage them for the best use of their community. But what happens when a community foundation is asked to take a step beyond one of its typical roles of funds management? The Lilly Endowment provided an opportunity for community foundations in Indiana to step into a convener role in addressing community-wide needs.

Giving Indiana Funds for Tomorrow (GIFT) – an initiative of Lilly Endowment – is a series of statewide initiatives and programs that began in 1990 to help establish and strengthen community foundations in Indiana and build their capacity to support the needs of their local communities. 

When GIFT began, there were fewer than 12 community foundations in the state with assets totaling approximately $100 million. GIFT has helped community foundations build unrestricted endowments and fund special projects and has inspired others to give through challenge grants. Community foundations that have regularly participated in GIFT have grown to approximately $3.7 billion as of the end of 2022.

GIFT also has encouraged community foundations to develop their leadership capacity, so they can better understand and address the needs and aspirations of all the residents of their counties. In 2024, another $210 million was made available via- Phase VIII (GIFT VIII). The Lilly Endowment has allocated a portion of this funding to support community leadership grants in communities.

Twelve community foundations, representing 25 counties across Indiana, reached out to Transform Consulting Group (TCG) for assistance with supporting the development of a concept plan for their  GIFT VIII Phase 2 Implementation Grant.

Several communities were focused on how to address the lack of child care in their county or region while other communities were focused on addressing housing, mental health, workforce development and school-age youth.

While the community needs were different, our approach was consistent. For each community, we followed our collective impact process, which aligns well with Lilly Endowment’s Community Leadership Framework for community foundations. 

Collective impact brings together cross-sector partners – business, government, education, and nonprofits – to work toward a common agenda of solving a specific social problem. Our process includes: 

1. Getting the Partners in the Room – We identify the partners to help address this issue.
   • Formed Advisory Committees in each county and region to guide our work.
2. Help People Understand the Landscape – We build trusting relationships with various stakeholders and gather data about the key community issue, including work already underway to improve the situation.
   • Conducted stakeholder engagement with employers, school leaders, government officials, parents, the public, and other community leaders through surveys, focus groups, and individual interviews.
   • Gathered publicly available data to better understand the community issue.
   • Benchmarked aspirational models and peer communities to inspire new solutions.
3. Co-Create Solutions – We determine what is already working well and could be scaled up as well as identify and prioritize catalytic projects to accomplish the outcomes.
   • Facilitated strategy planning sessions to recommend and agree on catalytic project(s) for the grant opportunity.
4. Redesign the System – We establish a structure and plan to implement the catalytic projects with clear deliverables and metrics.
   • Drafted concept plans to apply for grant funding to address the community issue.

Read more here about our Approach to Collective Impact.