As a lifelong learner, I returned to school when my children were in high school. I enrolled and graduated from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy; there I managed the Indiana Achievement Awards during an internship. IAA was a state-wide award program, that recognized nonprofits in the categories of innovation, impact, and sustainability. Each of these categories divided the applications into financial subcategories, organizations with budgets above and below $1 Million. Each year, IAA granted six $10,000 awards. 

It was overwhelming that winter day 20 years ago when 150 paper applications arrived (by hand delivery; there was no internet) at our office for consideration. My role was to shepherd the applications to volunteer readers and a final judging panel to find the eventual winners. Second Helpings, a thriving nonprofit, today, was the proud first small-budget innovation IAA winner. 

In 2005, I turned my attention to a second philanthropic act. I co-founded Impact 100, a women’s giving circle which has awarded over $2.7 million in $100,000 grants to 19 nonprofits in Central Indiana. The residual grant process of Impact 100 has also given 49 Central Indiana nonprofits smaller non-restricted funds. 

Today, women philanthropists can still have the joy of reading grant proposals as volunteer program officers, and collectively invest in promising new nonprofits programs ready for a large infusion of cash, through their involvement in Impact 100. The organization funds critical needs, new ventures, and innovative ways to solve community problems. In 16 years of impact grantmaking, a handful of Impact 100 recipients have fit the definition of innovation, including Rock Steady Boxing and Volunteer of America’s “Fresh Start” program.

This third act of philanthropy, the Arago Honors by the Meridian Foundation, builds on both IAA and Impact 100 to encourage and highlight innovative nonprofit programs in Central Indiana. Housed in the Meridian Foundation, a new family foundation established in 2019, the story of the Arago Honor’s creation follows below. 

The Arago Honors seek to encourage, inspire, and incentivize organizations to be intentional in their program development efforts. The Meridian Foundation looks forward to discovering and recognizing nonprofit innovation programs as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes. We are excited to tell the stories and discover the wide portfolio of missions and many sizes of nonprofits demonstrating innovation in Central Indiana. 

Innovation is often a substantial change in practice and positively compliments the mission of the organization.

Applicants for this new award should demonstrate how they add public value and challenge the prevailing wisdom. Tracking public value in nonprofit innovation sets the act apart from private sector innovators featuring a profitable new product or service. For this reason, nonprofits innovation must be about something worthwhile with clear impacts enhancing value in our city. 

There are many nonprofits in our community-solving problems in new and different ways. We want to spotlight their work and encourage other nonprofits to learn how they build new partnerships, balance social justice, document effective outcomes, and attract philanthropic dollars. 

Before we begin this new award program based on IAA and Impact 100, we pause to celebrate nonprofits, their productivity, and work to get our reinvented award program right. A small steering committee serves as a sounding board as The Meridian Foundation travels new, but familiar, ground.

At the core of the work is our belief that nonprofits deserve to be honored for their amazing accomplishments and be rewarded for them.