Summary of 2022 Arago Honor Recipients
Summary of 2022 Arago Honor Recipients
Seven nonprofits received $10,000 from the Meridian Foundation for innovation in 2022. The projects showcase how talented social entrepreneurs are creatively solving complex central Indiana problems in food insecurity, business entrepreneurship, housing inequity, substance abuse prevention, workforce development, and racial equity.
Three of the seven visionary leaders are pioneering models that give them greater freedom, flexibility, and accountability as nonprofits even when they are not as familiar with this business form. We salute innovators at Patchwork, Latinas Welding Guild and Be Nimble Foundation for embracing their nonprofit structure with great success in 2022! We also recognize more typical nonprofit work at larger organizations in 2022 (Joy’s House, Conner Prairie Museum, Overdose Lifeline, and Meals on Wheels Central Indiana) as social innovation linchpins. The Meridian Foundation awards proudly celebrates nonprofits as the risk capital civil society needs!
By sharing the best practices of the 2022 Arago Honor award recipients, we hope other potential applicants will be encouraged to embrace innovation and the ideation process. The notes below contain numerous examples of how nonprofits strengthening their niche in the community are resilient, proficient, and competent. Each of the seven nonprofit recipients sees a different problem in our community and is working to solve it.
For the first time this year, the Meridian Foundation has given the award recipients an innovation ranking, from start-up to disruptive. We credit Stanford Social Innovation Review with the concept and believe that it will aid readers in understanding that innovation is a process that evolves over time.
Patchwork Indy
Awarded $10,000 for their collaborative work with numerous community, faith, and governmental agencies to increase the awareness and strength of resettled communities in our city. By building bridges between cultures, Patchwork Indy seeks to improve affordable housing and the leadership of immigrants and refugees who are influencing their new lives and homes.
Recognized as a start-up innovator, Patchwork Indy began in 2019 and received its nonprofit status in 2020. The voice and visibility of this new grassroots nonprofit have grown as they work with others to highlight the lack of affordable housing in Indiana. The active work of their Executive Director, Claire Holba, and Bruce Garrison, board chair, as both a participant and convener of four Housing Advocacy Education Summits has given them a platform much greater than would be expected for an organization so young. Claire Holba’s call to action brought attention to the dire tenant situation at Lakeside Pointe at Nora Apartments.
Indiana is one of only five states in the nation that has no protection law for tenants and this issue is receiving increased scrutiny from the state legislature, foundations, housing coalitions, academic task forces, churches, and journalists. While it is too soon to know how change might occur, it is impressive that such a young nonprofit with a newly formed diverse board is helping get the right people in the room to leverage existing skills, wisdom, and experience.
Early accomplishments for Patchwork Indy include receiving a $50,000 grant in the fall of 2022 from the Glick Family Foundation to hire a community organizer experienced in immigrant rights. This full-time hire, the agency’s first full-time staff, will invest a significant amount of time working at the grassroots level to relieve volunteer board members. Patchwork Indy is also looking at creating a new revenue stream for the agency by building a six-part cultural humility training program that could be marketed to larger nonprofits in 2023.
The agency has an unusual, shared leadership model with an unpaid executive director and a board chair who is employed at The Dwelling Place to engage with organizations throughout Greater Indianapolis. While the sustainability of this model is challenging and uncertain, we recognize both the nonprofit and board’s passion for their mission (to build belonging among cultures) is overcoming long-term liabilities.
Rationale for Selection: Patchwork Indy appears to be in the early stages of addressing/resolving a deep-rooted housing problem in Indiana. Understandably, this challenge is a long haul. It may be some time before they realize significant results. In initiating important collaborations and raising awareness, the organization seems to be on a path to making lasting changes that the Meridian Foundation’s Arago Honors proudly encourages.
Latinas Welding Guild (LWG)
Awarded $10,000 for empowering Latina women to be leaders in the welding industry. The Guild offers inclusive wrap-around services for women competing in the welding and manufacturing industry which is traditionally a male-dominated field that provides barrier-free job training, job placement, ongoing career coaching, workplace consulting for industry employers, and community welding education.
We recognize the Guild as a catch-up innovator for reducing disadvantages. Led by Guatemala-born Consuelo Poland Lockhart, who was adopted by her U.S. family at the age of three, she founded the Indianapolis nonprofit in 2017 after a four-year welding career and continues to run the organization as she enters her tenth year. Consuelo has an arts background and discovered firsthand that learning how to be a welder was more forgiving than woodworking. “I didn’t know where this career would take me,” she says, noting that her desire has always been to be on a creative path. “I never thought I would be running a nonprofit,” says this determined social entrepreneur.
Consuelo enjoys creating this safe space for Latino women in welding. “The more I looked at the industry, the more I realized there was no mentoring system or established and specialized professional development for welders, ” she explains. By forming LWG she has been able to help other women. Her personal experience as a minority woman continually being questioned and criticized by men in the welding industry cemented her desire to help others like her.
“Women have a place behind the welding gun,” says the nonprofit founder. Consuelo advises women interested in starting a welding and/or fabrication career to not be afraid to ask for help.
According to the Indiana Department of Workforce Development (datavizpublic.in.gov), there are 14,822 welding jobs in the state and about 1,900 openings each year. Ninety percent of these openings will replace retiring welders leaving the industry. The welding workforce in Indiana is projected to grow 14 percent in the next five years. Since 2017 LWG has trained 112 women and certified 67 women since the fall of 2019.
A growing list of local funders is supporting LWG, including Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust, United Way of Central Indiana, The Women’s Fund of Central Indiana, and PNC Bank. Grants from funders in 2022 were roughly 75 percent of the nonprofit’s income. Fee for service, including instruction contracts with Indianapolis Public Schools and Southeast Community Services, made up about 20 percent of income. The earned revenue from IPS as classroom instructors at Arsenal Tech High School is not only building a pipeline for the industry but employs Guild graduates as classroom instructors, enabling students to see a workforce like themselves.
One of the volunteer readers of the Arago Honors gave high marks to LWG’s fabrication program and felt it was the agency’s strongest indicator of innovation. Another reader felt that the five-year-old organization would benefit from strategic planning.
Rationale for Selection: Latinas Welding Guild is placing women in a welding booth where intense sparks, creative focus and the protective gear of the nonprofit provide needed security. By breaking down workforce barriers in so many ways, LWG is reducing disadvantages for Black and brown women, while simultaneously growing the welding workforce in central Indiana.
Be Nimble Foundation
Awarded $10,000 for Melon Kitchens, a ghost kitchen for Black/Brown chefs, housed at 16 Tech’s AMP Marketplace. The two-year-old training program allows chefs to scale their enterprises through a delivery-only and take out-model supported by business resources and supplies, pantry access, a shared commissary kitchen, and the technology infrastructure needed for growth. New business owners can focus on the food instead of marketing, delivery, equipment, pick-ups, and financing.
Be Nimble Foundation is recognized with the highest ranking of disruptive innovation by the Meridian Foundation for creating a significant long-term advantage in central Indiana. Judges gave the application high marks in all categories and applaud the organization’s ability to leverage food service delivery for minority chefs during a pandemic.
High marks are also earned by the nonprofit’s co-founders Kelli Jones and Jeff Williams. In recognizing Kelli and Be Nimble, The Meridian Foundation also honors Kelli’s entrepreneurial spirit and passion to create more Black enterprises in Indianapolis, where she grew up. Kelli has lived in New York and Los Angeles and had been working in the tech space in DEI for 10 years when she returned to Indy. The pandemic and the transformative moment of Black Lives Matter gave her the right timing and experience to create this untraditional business model. For Kelli and her cousin and co-founder, Jeff Williams of Dallas, Melon Kitchen is just one piece of their business portfolio. Kelli Jones has worked hard to align their investments, explaining that a dotted line connects the enterprises.
Tech space in Indy is a tier-two market, explains Kelli. She felt our city was missing a wealth opportunity and wanted to help Black people like her learn more about the potential for new businesses, but also the impact that tech jobs can have on a community.
In her portfolio are several companies, pitching contests, tradeshows, and fundraising events that have a growing venture capital firm called Sixty8 Capital at the top. Sixty8Capital is the first Indiana-based Venture Capital firm focused on investing in diverse communities. To date, Sixty8 Capital has invested in 14 companies, five of which are Indiana founded or based. Sixty8Capital is now a $20 million fund.
In 2020 Be Nimble Foundation received a $300,000 award from Microsoft for three years to increase diversity in tech employment through upskilling and skills-first hiring.
“Be Nimble is the platform that enables us to grow talent,” says Kelli. “It is the support mechanism that allows us to showcase talent and build generational wealth of Black business owners to make a change.”
Be Nimble Foundation is embarking on phase two of the Nile Innovation Bank, which includes the launch of their newest program, Retail, and E-commerce fellowship, and acceleration. The program will focus on growing existing businesses through a one-year fellowship concentrating on building a scalable e-commerce tech stack, assisting in product development and manufacturing, and connecting entrepreneurs to retail partnerships for their products. Long-term goals of this program are to help increase the GDP of our state, establish a thriving retail industry, and build sustainable and businesses for Black and Latinx entrepreneurs. The United Way’s social innovation fund recently awarded $94,000 to Be Nimble Foundation for this new venture. United Way has previously awarded Be Nimble $75,000 in 2020 and $118,000 in 2021.
Rationale for Selection: Defying the conventional wisdom of being a nonprofit, Be Nimble Foundation is only at the beginning of its work as a platform to build Black and Latinx business enterprises and generational wealth in Indianapolis. We are proud to recognize them as they spur innovation and pursue new high-risk ventures in Indianapolis, a city learning and yearning to be more entrepreneurial.
Conner Prairie
Awarded $10,000 for its deliberate and inclusive new Promised Land as Proving Ground (PLPG) exhibit covering centuries of African American history from pre-colonial Africa to present day and the importance of faith, food, and activism. The exhibit will incorporate new stories alongside existing Prairie Town narratives when its phased opening is complete in 2023.
Conner Prairie is recognized with a two-tier innovation ranking by the Meridian Foundation—catch-up with the potential to be disruptive. Catch-up innovation fits PLPG today, for its inclusive, deliberate, and comprehensive work to tell the narrative of the origins of African American life on the prairie. But we also recognize the museum’s potential to be an innovation disruptor when the full impact of PLPG is reached.
“It is our responsibility to tell the truths of history,” says Jesse Kramer, curator of exhibits at Conner Prairie. “If we are not doing that, who will?” The Meridian Foundation recognizes Conner Prairie for taking on this daunting task with full acknowledgment that correcting history is very challenging.
Conner Prairie is a large nonprofit museum (affiliated with the Smithsonian Museum) with over 100 employees, a $14.5 million budget, and a $150 million endowment. Roots of the property date back to 1934 when business leader and philanthropist Eli Lilly bought the 1,000-plus acres of Hamilton County land on the White River. In 1964, Mr. Lilly transferred the property to Earlham College with an endowment and continued financial support on the condition that the property remains open to the public. Over the years divergent missions and visions caused irreparable tension between the Museum’s needs and the College’s interests.
In 2005, Conner Prairie split from Earlham College, which resulted in separating the endowment and governing boards. Conner Prairie’s linked history with Earlham College explains where the museum is now in its life cycle. For although it is decades old, Conner prairie is still in the growth phase, working on governance, capacity, development, and storytelling.
As a living history museum in the 1990s, Conner Prairie used a rigid timeline set in the year 1836 to talk about life on the prairie with interpretive characters not acknowledging present culture. There have been variations on that theme as new exhibits came online, but the rationale for developing PLPG in 2022 is simple and strong. Conner Prairie as a living history museum had been neglecting a large and important part of its collective history and the DEAI (Diversity, Equity Inclusion, and Acceptance) promise made in 2018 required change. In 2019, the museum abandoned the problematic Follow the North Star storyline, and Lilly Endowment, Inc. funded a planning grant activated in 2020, as well as a subsequent implementation grant in 2021.
“We have an issue with people of color seeing themselves at Conner Prairie and we hope to change that,” says Dr. Charlene J. Fletcher who was hired in February 2021 as Conner Prairie’s first cultural director, historian, educator, and writer. Conner Prairie CEO Norman Burns a 30-year trained social historian and researcher at numerous national museums leads the museum’s cultural shift. He has been championing and cultivating this change from normal museum practices at Conner Prairie since he became CEO in 2016.
Rationale for Selection: PLPG at Conner Prairie is designed to correct the narrative regarding Black history on the prairie. In adding new diverse stories, PLPG is creating more awareness that also showcases new impressive community partnerships. Presently, it is unknown how welcoming museum visitors will be to experiencing these past-due revisions. The museum is confident that diversifying its audience and increasing its digital presence and online followers will be sustainable changes that improve attendance revenue.
Joy’s House
Awarded $10,000 for creating an End-of-Life Doula program that demonstrates a willingness to embrace an overlooked aspect of life—the dying process. The program focuses on how an individual wants to live during their end-of-life transition, offering additional support to family caregivers.
Joy’s House receives the start-up innovation designation from the Meridian Foundation for their End-of-Life Doula program because the initial wraparound services of the program are only available to a handful of families using the nonprofit’s adult day care and are not officially launched. Plans are to begin serving no more than five families through a pilot program and business plan approved by the nonprofit’s board in the second quarter of 2023. Five Joy’s House team members will be trained as Doulas in this initial phase.
The consensus of the volunteer readers of the Arago Honors is that there are no adult daycare services in our community resembling Joy’s House. From the look of facilities to programs, Joy’s House is the gold standard for senior services. We believe that the next suite of services being contemplated at Joy’s House will just make the distinction stronger. There is no one in the community that has the same attention to thoughtful and intentional design as Joy’s House.
An InStyle magazine article in 2020 brought attention to a more vibrant Doula business for end-of-life flourishing on the coasts of the United States. “The overall goal of a death doula is to normalize the experience of death for all parties involved—because death, just like birth is a natural and unavoidable part of life,” said the article. Joy’s House Founder and CEO Tina MacIntosh seeks to normalize the death experience for all involved and has been researching what a support network of end-of-life doulas might look like in central Indiana.
A delay in funding has hampered the growth of the Death Doula program at Joy’s House, admits Tina McIntosh. She is pleased to announce that CareSource has pledged $10,000 for the program and there are promising partnerships with the Indiana Division of Aging, Indiana University’s Department of Health and Wellness, the University of Indianapolis, and innovative program support from CICOA Aging and In-Home Services, who is helping Joy’s House build Caregiver Way, a web-based resource for caregivers. CICOA earned an Arago Honor last year from the Meridian Foundation.
Rationale for Selection: Joy’s House End-of-Life Doula program demonstrates a willingness to embrace an emerging concept while providing its own innovative extension by seeking to further support the needs of caregivers after their loved one has passed. We salute how Joy’s House is addressing a need that is difficult for people to discuss and are confident start-up funding will follow.
Meals on Wheels (MOW) Central Indiana
Awarded $10,000 for creating the EMBRACE Cancer program that provides medically tailored meals (MTM) to vulnerable individuals recently diagnosed with cancer. In 2021 the national cancer survival rate was 57 percent. Clients in the EMBRACE Cancer program had a survival rate of 64 percent, an amazing seven percent higher.
Meals on Wheels receives an incremental innovation ranking from the Meridian Foundation for creating a moderate advantage. Readers of the application were mixed on the strength of this innovation because typically an expansion of services by a nonprofit does not merit recognition. MOW’s exception is based on its strong quantitative outcomes.
MOW says they are looking at expanding the medically tailored nutrition of EMBRACE to different populations. They believe the model is replicable. Should start-up funding be found, leadership is looking at delivering specifically designed nutritional meals for diabetes patients, local health recovery homes, new hospital oncology systems, or military veterans in the state.
The EMBRACE Cancer program is modeled on an MTM program designed for AIDS patients when there were few medical solutions in the 1980s. It is the only program of its kind in the state of Indiana. EMBRACE serves both the client and the client’s family, allowing people living with a cancer diagnosis to focus on what matters most: their treatment.
A thorough review of nutritional assessments and communication with the program’s partner, Eskenazi Health, confirms that EMBRACE Cancer clients visit the hospital less, have an increased knowledge of medical needs, and are better educated to make smart, nutritional food choices. The partnership with Eskenazi and others provide several important strengths: a steady stream of client referrals; lower costs in food preparation; packaging from FlexPac; shipping of frozen meals by UPS; and nonperishable pantry items provided by Midwest Food Bank and Gleaners.
Jamie Johnson, the new CEO at MOW is taking the 50-year-old agency with 29 employees in different directions. Plans include a greater focus on grant writing, recruiting a physician to join the MOW board, more networking with national and local affinity food groups, and strategic outreach by the board to improve the agency as a partner of choice with other nonprofits in central Indiana.
MOW is a member of food network affinity groups that share best practices and break down the barriers of what could be competing agencies. Fourteen local agencies belong to the Indy Hunger Network which has a central office, staff, and separate board of directors. The nationally based Food is Medicine Coalition is dedicated to replicating successful evidence-based practices with all its members—sharing data and service delivery models whenever and wherever possible. There are two members of the coalition in Indiana.
Rationale for Selection: The quantitative outcomes of EMBRACE Cancer set it apart from other innovations and MOW demonstrates that innovation can be achieved by taking a new perspective on an existing, time-proven model. Through its traditional delivery approach, it can serve a new population with different needs and set amazing health outcomes for cancer patients. We encourage MOW to find new populations to serve with new partners.
Overdose Lifeline, Inc. (ODL)
Awarded $10,000 for its Naloxone Harm Reduction Distribution strategy placing this opiate antidote in strategic Indiana locations, including nineteen repurposed vending machines in correctional facilities, hospitals, health care centers, and visible community centers. In 2021 Indiana reported 2,554 overdose deaths or an average of seven Hoosiers a day.
This statewide nonprofit based in Indianapolis receives the incremental ranking for innovation from the Meridian Foundation. Its multi-faceted approach is creating moderate advantages while reaching numerous disparate populations.
When Overdose Lifeline, Inc. founder Justin Phillips lost her 20-year-old son Aaron to a drug overdose, she used this life-altering event as a catalyst to become a leader in the war on substance abuse. The first call to action in 2015 was ODL successfully influencing the Indiana legislature to enact Aaron’s Law, granting non-prescription drug access to Naloxone with no repercussions for good Samarians. A handful of specifically designed ODL programs continues to incrementally improve national and state-wide substance misuse, including:
This is Not About Drugs, the first youth-focused program at ODL uses a train-the-trainer model to recruit over 400 delivery partners in more than 28 states. The program has reached over 100,000 youth nationally and is being adapted into an online platform.
In 2021, ODL launched Camp Mariposa-Indianapolis, an addiction prevention and mentoring program for youth 9-12 affected by the substance misuse of a family member.
In 2022, ODL launched the Heart Rock Justus Family Recovery Center, a 24/7 holistic residential facility for pregnant and parenting women challenged by substance misuse and addiction. United Way of Central Indiana gave $60,000 to the women’s residential recovery center.
An annual Overdose Awareness Day is observed once a year by ODL to increase awareness and reduce the stigmatization of this chronic disease.
The most recent substance abuse work at ODL involves distributing fentanyl test strips, allowing a person using drugs to be more aware of what they are putting into their body.
Government contracts are the strongest revenue stream for ODL at 75 percent, but there is also significant grant revenue at nearly 13 percent. The agency is working to diversify its funding base to support programs and services. Because the opioid and substance misuse epidemic has not declined, federal and state funds continue to be directed toward ODL’s leadership role in this health arena. ODL intends to apply for a portion of the opioid settlement funds at the state level. The agency says its online learning programs are also a growing source of revenue and uses these funds to support programs.
Rationale for Selection: The ODL statewide and national trainings are impressive and their core of 250 volunteers speaks to the engagement and investment they have made in the community. The laser focus of their founder Justin Phillips drives the organization forward and gives them a clear understanding of substance misuse problems and interconnections. The Meridian Foundation applauds its model to reach underserved communities, especially prison populations. However, we suggest ODL continue to work on diversifying its revenue stream for less reliance on government funding and improving sustainability.