Prior Arago Honor Nonprofits Earn Additional 2025 Meridian Foundation Innovation Funding
Five nonprofits previously recognized for innovation by the Meridian Foundation’s Arago awards have been recognized in 2025 for continuing to solve community problems with brand new disruptive and solution-oriented programs. Each nonprofit has received $10,000 for their continued work as innovators.
“The programs by Eskenazi Health, Early Learning Indiana, Joy’s House, Pattern and Patchwork Indy each builds on their previous innovative program.” explains Indy Meridian Foundation founder Donna Oklak. “However, these second-generation compassion -based programs are significantly different from their first. The programs showcase nonprofit leaders that continue to challenge the status quo. Our community is the beneficiary.”
The Meridian Foundation proudly recognizes:
Eskenazi Health Foundation. (Honored in 2023 for Community Weaver Program)
Gregory S. Fehribach Center: Catalyst for Change
The Fehribach Center provides internships for college and university students with physical disabilities to reverse the employment inequities of this population. Since the program began in 2013, the Fehribach Center’s has assisted 475 interns at 46 different employers and 91% of these interns have found equitable employment. This is three times the national average. In the summer of 2024, the Fehribach Center received a $10 million grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc, to support the expansion of its internship program, research initiatives and endowment growth for institutional sustainability.
Americans with physical disabilities experience poverty at twice the rate of their non-disabled peers. In 2023 only 31% of physically disabled college and university graduates found employment, compared to 75% of non-disabled graduates. Even when employed, college and university graduates with physical disabilities earned 37% less than those without a physical disability. The Fehribach Center aims to reverse these inequities and create a sustainable, equitable workforce in Indianapolis and other cities.
Early Learning Indiana (ELI) (Honored in 2021 for Classroom Support Work-Based Program)
ELI: Deepening Early Language and Literacy Practices in Hoosier Classrooms, a partnership with ELI and LENA (LENA Grow ™)
The partnership with LENA (Language Environmental Analysis) is another quality innovative classroom instruction program for young learners at ELI. LENA is a national nonprofit and innovative leader in research and programming focused on language development in young children. This new partnership will improve the quality of verbal interactive language “volleys” between young children and their teachers in Indiana communities. ELI students will wear new technology in a small device, called a “talk pedometer,” using cloud- based-software to help adults make proven, sustainable language choices when interactively speaking with children.
Since LENA implementation began in ELI’s Day Early Learning classrooms, 110 teachers have been trained, and more than 500 children have used LENA in 75 statewide classrooms. ELI anticipates reaching 600 additional teachers in 300 more early learning classrooms in three years.
Start-up funding for LENA Grow ™ was received from Lilly Endowment Inc. to expand the reach of the program to more Indiana providers. The unmet needs of children and adults in the early learning sector post-pandemic have compounded the need for creative solutions that improve instructional practices in preschool classrooms.
Joy’s House. (Honored in 2022 for End-of-Life-Doula Program)
Joy’s House: Caregiver Way
Joy’s House has been doing the important work of walking alongside family caregivers in the Indianapolis community for 25 years. After many conversations and advice from nonprofit innovator Johnathan Haag of Wrinkle Innovation studio at CICOA Aging and In-Home Solutions, Joy’s House decided to build a new disruptive internet platform called Caregiver Way. The technology builds on and enriches the support Joy’s House has always shown caregivers. It offers personalized support and resources, peer support and community building, access to profession guidance, a resource library, education and training from industry professionals and seasoned caregivers, and self-care and mental health support.
Creativity is a fundamental driving force for innovation, especially in areas like caregiver support, where there’s a constant need to adapt to evolving challenges. For innovators working in caregiver support, creativity doesn’t just come from new ideas—it is about continuously reimaging how to solve problems and identify better support.
Caregiver Way serves family caregivers and their care recipients, local businesses, nonprofits, health plans and many others. Caregiver Way received start-up funding from the Indiana Division of Aging to develop the technology. Joy’s House is continually seeking new funding to maintain the platform.
Pattern (Honored in 2021 for Creative Fellowship Program)
Pattern: Building the Creative Community
Creativity continues to propel Pattern into new and unexpected spaces. Guided by a new strategic plan, Pattern is embracing opportunities that constantly push boundaries to meet the evolving needs of the creative community.
In 2023 and again in 2024, Pattern held a Creative Economy Summit to bring together policymakers, entrepreneurs and creatives with diverse voices across Indiana’s creative sector. In a second initiative with partner Central Indiana Corporate Partnership (CICP), Pattern is using data and storytelling to publish: “Embracing a Culture of Creativity: Indiana’s Overlooked Economic Engine.”
Pattern seeks to foster an inclusive, diverse Indiana where creatives from all backgrounds can live and work. The SPACE (Strategic Program for the Advancement of Creative Entrepreneurs) is designed to overcome identified challenges of creative entrepreneurs in a six-month cohort, that is open to emerging and mid-career individuals and creative start-ups businesses
Pattern has received a $35,000 grant from the Herbert Simon Family Foundation to advance the SPACE program in 2025. The Allen Whitehall Clowes Charitable Foundation awarded Pattern $225,000 to convene and educate Indiana stakeholders about the creative economy.
Patchwork Indy (Honored in 2022 for leadership in immigrants’ affordable housing)
Patchwork Indy: Welcome Corps Private Sponsorship
Patchwork Indy continues to work with underserved communities and welcome refugee families in need of safety and freedom to the United States in new and innovative ways. While housing remains a priority for the nonprofit, the current refugee policy landscape in the U. S. has allowed Patchwork Indy to expand how it serves and resources residents from other countries. Refugee families have come from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Burma (Myanmar), and Afghanistan among other countries where they have fled conflict and persecution.
Patchwork Indy seeks to improve the resettlement of refugees, including asylees who usually fall through the cracks of the US system. By improving the process of receiving and welcoming refugees to Indiana communities with private sponsors seeking to support and welcome them, the nonprofit also hopes to contribute to the economic prosperity of cities by bringing skilled and experienced workers into communities who may not have previously considered an Indiana city as their resettled home.
Two members of the Patchwork Indy staff, Claire Holba and Ally Ntumba work on a national level of refugee resettlement. Claire Holba splits her time between Patchwork and the Niskanen Center in Washington, DC. Ally Ntumba is one of only 70 refugees and round table experts in Portugal, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand. Patchwork Indy has become one of the leading Private Sponsorship Organizations in the US.
A recent $1.2 million gift from a local church has expanded the capacity of Patchwork Indy. A planning grant from Lilly Endowment is also underwriting a feasibility study for the growing nonprofit.