Lilly Endowment Grants $100 Million to Human Services
Christamore House Receives $5 million for financial sustainability
Contact: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Shayla Pinner January 13, 2017
317.635.7211
Indianapolis, IN
- Christamore House Family and Community Center has received a grant of $5 million as part of Lilly Endowment Inc.'s commitment to helping human service organizations that strive to improve the lives of low-income individuals and families and strengthen their communities in Indianapolis and throughout the state.
Christamore House will use the grant funds to establish a substantial endowment and make critical facility repairs and improvements that are imperative to its ability to deliver and sustain the programs and services necessary to improve the quality of life for residents of Haughville and the Near Westside for generations to come.
"This life-changing grant from Lilly Endowment will ensure Christamore House continues its service to the families of Haughville and the Near Westside for years to come," said Pitt Thompson, Christamore House C.E.O. "This grant will fund needed facility improvements that will sustain our historic facility for future generations."
Lilly Endowment is making a total of $100 million in grants to 15 organizations through this initiative to help them enhance their long-term impact by building stronger financial futures. Many of the organizations will use their grants to establish endowments or fortify an existing endowment so they can have more flexibility and greater capacity to work strategically.
These grants complement the Endowment's regular support for human service organizations, including grants to the United Way of Central Indiana.
"The grants offer transformative opportunities for the organizations to secure strong financial futures," said Ace Yakey, Lilly Endowment's vice president for community development. "Unlike support for day-to-day operations, these funds will help each organization strengthen its financial infrastructure so it can serve more people over the long-term and weather unexpected financial challenges. These grants do not alleviate the need for the organizations to attract ongoing support for their efforts. Indeed, we hope the grants will help them more effectively attract support for their important work."
For 111 years, the Christamore House, formally the Christamore College Settlement, has provided social service programs and opportunities for residents in the Indianapolis community, helping them improve their quality of life.
It is the mission of Christamore House to provide the very best early childhood education, after school programming, senior citizen services, preventative services and employment assistance to the residents of the Haughville and Near Westside communities. Christamore also strives to offer the most comprehensive summer learning and amateur boxing programs in the city of Indianapolis.
Lilly Endowment selected Christamore House and the others in the initiative because they are critical to community efforts to serve at-risk residents in their neighborhoods. By doing so they help build social capital, which is critical for addressing the range of challenges neighborhoods face.
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Lilly Endowment Inc.
is an Indianapolis-based private philanthropic foundation created in 1937 by three members of the Lilly family - J.K. Lilly Sr. and sons J.K. Jr. and Eli - through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly & Company. The Endowment is primarily committed to the causes of community development, education and religion and has a special commitment to its hometown, Indianapolis, and its home state, Indiana.
