Summary of 2024 Arago Honor Recipients
Six nonprofits shared $122,000 in the fourth year of the Meridian Foundation’s recognition program for innovating nonprofits. The projects showcase how talented social entrepreneurs are creatively solving complex problems in central Indiana and for the first time in Naples, Florida.
In 2024 two nonprofits, Big Car Collaborative and Fonseca Theatre Company, were recognized as disruptive sustainable innovators. This new category for innovation recognition is for nonprofits with strong perseverance, overcoming numerous obstacles and showing strong determination to find sustainable capital resources. Disruptive sustainable innovating nonprofits need encouragement overtime to meet their goals and solve the most complex community problems. Recognized as disruptive innovators in 2024 are Goodwill of Central and Southern Indiana and Trinity Free Clinic. St. Matthew’s House of Naples, Florida earned an incremental innovation ranking and You Yes You is honored for catch-up innovation.
Each recipient of an Arago Honor award has been assigned a ranking, from start-up to disruptive, to show nonprofits that there is more than one type of innovation when implementing creative community solutions.
Big Car Collaborative
Honored for using the arts to mitigate adverse impacts in the Garfield Park neighborhood for over 10 years. Big Car plans to adaptively reuse and build out a 40,000 square foot former factory building as a dedicated contemporary art museum when none exists in Indianapolis. The new museum will also feature performance and rental space, a commercial kitchen, business incubator storefronts, audio recording and visual artist studios, joining other neighborhood amenities on the south side campus.
Big Car Collaborative receives $20,000 as a disruptive sustainable innovator.
This story shows how perseverance overtime, much like the pieces of a puzzle fitting together, build a stronger cohesive neighborhood. The mix of artists, the affordable housing imitative, maintaining identity in a thoughtful manner, and creative neighborhood spaces make the neighborhood welcoming. The partnership of husband-and-wife team Jim Walker and Shaunta Marsh builds on their different interests and skills to revitalize the Garfield Park neighborhood they live in. Jim focuses on the art-based community and economic development. Shaunta leads cultural programs from a more spiritual and artist-forward perspective.
Taking risk and listening were the two top lessons the co-founders of Big Car Collaborative said have been the most important for them over the years. By combining their different interests and skill to revitalize Garfield Park the result is stronger.
Jim Walker: “I’ve learned from our experience with Fountain Square that someone must take risks and do things that don’t always make a ton of financial sense. We saw that we have to swim against the tide of market forces. We saw that art and artists do help build places and communities with character and authenticity. But when the market takes over, these qualities can be quickly lost into a sort of sameness. In Garfield Park we are intentionally preserving the cultural aspects of our neighborhood. It’s a lot of work. But it’s worth it. “
Shaunta Marsh: “After 20 years of being entrenched in our community, I’ve learned that the most crucial part of our work is listening to not just the most vocal people but also to those who don’t make it to neighborhood meetings. There is no set formula for engagement. We need to be constantly listening and then we need to balance our actions to serve everyone. It’s very important to consider the natural world and everything living in it.”
Rationale for Selection: Big Car’s vision and ambition is most impressive, and their model of inclusive growth has the potential to be an organic/grassroots strategy more communities should embrace. Their innovative work represents both fiscal and philosophical investment in neighborhoods with intentional cooperation and collaboration—a shared vision built together, rather than simply imposed.
Fonseca Theatre Company (FTC)
Earns recognition for overcoming the 2020 tragic death of its namesake and boundary-pushing founder, Bryan Fonseca, for continuing his passion to use theatre as a tool for advocacy and community building on the near westside of Indianapolis. Since the founding of FTC in 2018, other peer theatres in the local performing arts scene have taken notice and made deeper investments in diverse programming and civic engagement within their own theatres.
Fonseca Theatre Company (FTC) receives $15,000 for disruptive sustainable innovation.
Going on without your founder during and following a pandemic is daunting. Jordan Flores Schwartz, who became the theatre’s 27-year-old producing director had to adjust to taking on the top role she hadn’t expected to assume for years. “It’s been a journey,” said Schwartz, who has been juggling her role at the theatre with furthering her education, first at Indiana University and more recently at The Ohio State University’s PhD arts program. “But there was never a question of whether we would continue. We had to.”
Strategic growth continues at FTC. While Jordan Flores Schwartz pursues her education, a new Director of the Basile Collaboration Center, Paul Hansen, will be on site to build new strategies and programs. Typically, Arago Honor Awards are unrestricted, but this request from FTC asked the Meridian Foundation to fund FTC’s critical need for proper lighting and sound on an auxiliary stage, within their overall innovation story.
FTC is living out their mission by directly engaging with the community they serve “on the other side of the tracks” in the Haughville neighborhood. Data from 93.4% of survey respondents says more arts-related programming reflecting their community is needed. They are working with partners not seen in most theatres—community centers, schools, prisons, neighborhoods groups. By directly engaging with the community they serve, FTC has carefully tailored their offerings to reflect their audience.
Rationale for Selection: Yes, FTC is innovative. What is most compelling about what they are doing is their unapologetic commitment to the near Westside and their hyper local -based strategy. They have planted themselves in a community to an extent that most nonprofit arts organizations have not.
Goodwill of Central and Southern Indiana
Is recognized for building transformational and complex innovative partnerships in the northeast corridor at 38th and Sheridan that began in 2020. Goodwill and a vast array of industry (Cook Medical), nonprofit, grocery store partners and new infrastructure facilities are creatively lowering barriers for hard-to- employ workers in the neighborhood.
Goodwill receives $30,000 as a disruptive innovator and shares $10,000 of this award with UNEC, United Northeast Community Development Corporation.
By recognizing both nonprofits—the larger Goodwill of Central and Southern Indiana and the much smaller and nimbler CDC, UNEC with strong community roots, the Meridian Foundation seeks to build on the strengths of both organizations.
Since 2020 The partnership between Goodwill, Cook Medical and UNEC have pioneered initiatives that bring sustainable job opportunities and economic mobility to Indianapolis northeast side. In 2022 this area had a high unemployment rate of 30.2% and a median household income of $30,270. The area’s demographic—where over 85% of residents are Black or Hispanic and nearly 70% are female—highlight the importance of culturally responsive, inclusive support services.
The transformative appearance of new buildings, parking and infrastructure in the neighborhood on East 38 th Street is remarkable. Cook Medical spent $3.6 million on the Indy Fresh Market and $7 million on the manufacturing facility. New market credits from the city of Indianapolis and the Indianapolis Foundation completed funding on the $15 million project. Costs to build the new 95,000 square foot Tom and Arlene Grande campus that opened April 2024 by Eskenazi Health were $55 million. The IndyGo Purple bus line is estimated to cost $188 million which includes new elevated platforms and new electric buses. Half of the cost for the 15.2-mile line between Indianapolis and the city of Lawrence is for new infrastructure.
The project builds on the skill set of Goodwill’s mission to lower barriers for hard to employ workers living in the neighborhood. Goodwill has perfected this work by building their Excel Centers educational network of 41 adult high school in nine states since 2010.
The array of partnerships ranging from for-profit, nonprofit, government, foundations and residents is extremely impressive and essential for the wraparound approach the project needs to succeed. The partnerships are the innovation. Initially the coaching program by Goodwill may not seem innovative, however the commitments from so many different entities is disruptive. Patience will be required to see results as it may take five to ten years to change lives.
While the Indy Fresh market grocery store was designed to be an amenity to the manufacturing facility, according to news reports it is not profitable. It is being propped up by Goodwill, Cook Medical and Gleaners, and sustainability is not assured.
Rationale for Selection: It is uncommon for business to invest in establishing a high-quality manufacturing facility in such an economically distressed area as 38 th and Sheridan. The barriers are significant for both Goodwill and Cook Medical. Follow- up questions to Goodwill showed both employee wages and number of employees at the plant were lower than originally planned. We are confident continued due diligence, new partnerships, Goodwill’s wrap around services and growing trust in Cook Medical’s investment will raise community impact overtime.
St. Matthew’s House
Is recognized for integrating five social enterprises—brick and mortar thrift stores, an e-commerce platform, a restaurant, catering company and a hotel and conference center—to create a diversified revenue portfolio that also serves as a job training network for the homeless population they shelter. The funding model of St. Matthew’s House removes its reliance on donations and grants, offering the nonprofit more sustainability and self-sufficiency.
St. Matthew’s House of Naples, Florida receives $12,000 for incremental innovation and is the first award to a nonprofit outside central Indiana.
The social enterprise ventures at St. Matthew’s House generate nearly half the annual income the nonprofit needs to operate their programs and fund administrative expenses, allowing charitable donations to go further. The five businesses operating at St. Matthew’s House provide job training and job opportunities to more than 100 clients annually.
The various business ventures, ranging from thrift stores to a hotel and conference center under one umbrella, like a corporate conglomerate is impressive for an agency of this size with an annual budget of $3.2 million.
The innovation St. Matthew’s house demonstrates is incremental but done at a noteworthy scale. Readers of the application said they are doing several things that put them ahead of many of their peers. However, they are not alone in being ahead as there are a handful of nonprofits across the country with similar structures that also embrace e-commerce. Naples does have an unusual competitive environment that might not work in every city, i.e. high turnover of household goods in a resort/retirement area with high wealth access.
Readers also noted that St. Matthew’s House social enterprises are incredibly mission aligned. The nonprofit demonstrates their ability to pivot and pursue high value activities that produce high impact outcomes for the community. Supplemental questions helped the Meridian Foundation understand St. Matthew’s criteria for social enterprise venture expansion, including strengthening mission/brand, scalability, low-cost barriers to entry and donors willing to fund start-up costs.
Rationale for Selection: The duality of purpose for clients employed at St. Matthew’s House ready to turn their lives around makes the agency’s story compelling. St. Matthew’s House says 74% of employees report they have stayed sober since graduating from the agency’s drug-free program and 89% have full time jobs. We salute the Naples, Florida nonprofit for building the work ethic and training of former homeless citizens using mission-related business ventures, while also generating agency revenue.
Trinity Free Clinic
Has built three workforce development programs (medical and dental assisting and medical interpreting) for underserved students seeking entry level-healthcare careers. The innovative programs mitigate financial and educational barriers for students; offers concurrent classroom instruction and clinical experience; and enhances clinical staff resources. Skilled-volunteer doctors, dentists, nurses and hygienists provide students both mentoring and encouragement.
The clinic is recognized with $25,000 as a disruptive innovator.
Trinity Free Clinic created a new approach to solve more than one community problem. The programs came out of Trinity’s experience in a social innovation incubator at the Hamilton Community Foundation and launched the nonprofit’s ability to train at-risk entry level students in their clinic using workforce development. The pandemic challenged Trinity to explore new volunteer recruitment and funding strategies.
The clinic turned adversity into opportunity, both to meet the needs of the patients they serve and to lift those they serve through systematic change. The programs create a new educational approach that both reduces the time of educational attainment, addresses staffing issues within Trinity, and eliminates financial barriers for students. There are many win-win scenarios for both the free clinic and students seeking entry-level medical training.
For the Trinity Allied Health Education program to provide the hands-on clinical experience students need to succeed in the workplace, as well as individual test preparation, class sizes remain small. In 2024, 24 students completed the program, and projections are for 60 students in the programs in 2026. All 2024 program graduates passed their certification exams and found employment.
The partnerships for workforce development also exhibit creativity. Start-up funds from the Hamilton County Commissioners and Council gave strength to conversations with Vincennes University and Work One Indiana who built and underwrote training curriculum. Funds from United Way of Central Indiana have also strengthened the start-up workforce program.
Reliance on educational partner Vincennes University allows the clinic to uniquely combine free/reduced cost health care lessons and workforce development. “We knew Vincennes University would look more impressive on the students’ resumes than Trinity Free Clinic,” explains Trinity Free Clinic CEO Mel Wischmeyer.” She believes that students trained as Vincennes University students, with concurrent clinical rotations at Trinity Free Clinic have more confidence.
Trinity wants their students to feel that college aspirations are not out of reach. The partnership with Vincennes University prepares students for future success.
Rationale for Selection: Growth of Trinity to embrace social innovation and learn how to take business concepts through steps of venture development using design theory to create new opportunities and beneficial partnerships is impressive and inspiring!
You Yes You! (YYY)
Is recognized as the only program within the Indiana Department of Corrections focusing on improving the relationship of incarcerated fathers and their children. YYY is changing the traditional rehabilitation prison model using one-on-one re-entry planning, post release support, and carefully planned bonding events for fathers and their children, trainings, and mental health services. The state of Indiana’s recidivism rate is 30 percent; YYY’s recidivism rate is 13.5 percent.
YYY receives $20,000 as a catch-up innovating nonprofit.
The nearly ten-year-old nonprofit began with the first father-daughter dance for 25 fathers and 32 children in a correctional facility in Indiana. It was so successful that the Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) requested a second dance the following year, and the nonprofit began the process to become a 501(c)3. Founder Ericka Sanders slowly built the nonprofit during Covid and did not leave her corporate job until she was confident YYY could sustain her salary.
Ericka describes the process of starting YYY as “happenstance.”
When the incarcerated dads at the dance, took the opportunity to share their additional concerns for improving, maintaining and growing family relationships during their incarceration, it became apparent there was more work to do. Holistic reentry at YYY includes one-on-one reentry planning and post-release support, trainings, both individual and group mental health guidance. Sessions take place at both Putnamville and Plainfield Correctional Facilities and in January 2025 expanded to the more secure Pendleton Correctional Facility.
YYY is currently serving 56 incarcerated fathers, while also maintaining contact with and supporting approximately 50 prior released participants. Since 2018 YYY has served over 150 fathers and over 300 children.
Rationale for Selection: YYY is tackling a large complex issue that will require generational change. Their focus on strengthening the role of the individual as a father and then expanding into other areas of assistance and guidance based on individual needs for successful reentry is creative and uncommon in criminal justice work.