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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowThe Lilly Endowment is offering up to $600 million to Marion County’s public and private K-12 schools with the goal of improving students’ academic achievement and prospects for success after high school.
The Indianapolis-based philanthropic foundation said Thursday that more than 80 public, private and charter school districts and networks representing more than 300 schools in Marion County are eligible to apply for grants.
“Given the many and varied needs of students, the diversity of schools, and the complex factors schools must address in order to carry out their missions, the endowment expects that applicants will propose a variety of approaches that on the basis of convincing research or other evidence show promise to improve academic achievement and the prospects for postsecondary success,” the endowment said in a statement.
It added that in some cases, schools can propose a longer-term project covering such issues as food insecurity, chronic absenteeism, mental and physical health concerns and lack of transportation.
The endowment is launching the funding in a series of three phases. In the first phase, schools can apply for planning grants of up to $50,000 each to help them envision and develop plans.
In the second phase, eligible applicants may submit proposals requesting an “implementation grant” of an unspecified amount to initiate, enhance or expand programs or projects.
In the third phase, which is competitive, applicants may submit concept papers requesting competitive grants to fund programs or projects that are likely to align with the endowment’s goals of academic achievement and postsecondary success.
“Those applicants submitting the most compelling and promising ideas may, at the endowment’s sole discretion, be invited to participate in the second stage and submit a full proposal for a phase 3 competitive grant later in 2025,” the endowment said.
Phase 3 grants would range from $1.5 million to $40 million, depending on the winning applicants’ enrollment size.
The application packets, with deadlines and information sessions, can be found here (for public schools) and here (for private schools).
“Despite the best efforts of countless talented educators, too many students in Marion County K-12 schools are not achieving adequate educational success,” said Ted Maple, the endowment’s vice president for education, in written remarks. “We are encouraging school leaders to take full advantage of the opportunities under these initiatives to identify and implement promising, local, national or global, evidenced-based approaches to address the relevant educational challenges and opportunities of their students.”
The endowment’s funding announcement is its second large one in recent weeks. Earlier this month, the endowment said it had approved grants totaling more than $300 million to 13 colleges and universities in Indiana to support community development projects aimed at improving quality of life.
The five-year grants ranged in size from $12.1 million to $32 million each, with DePauw University in Greencastle landing the largest grant.
The Lilly Endowment is a private foundation created in 1937 by J.K. Lilly and his sons, Eli and J.K. Jr., through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Co. The endowment is a separate entity from the company, with a distinct governing board, staff and location.
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A big thank to the endowment for largely ignoring the advice to divest the vast majority of it’s Lilly stock in order to diversify. The company’s enormous success has fueled these incredible gifts!
Well, no doubt this is fueled by the abject failure of many parents and the schools that seek to educate their kids and I hope in five years, we can look back and say how successful this effort was.
I’d like to see a combined effort at the state level to fund true school choice for all. Remember, the wealthy have universal school choice! It’s the poor and the middle class that are left in corrupt “school systems” more concerned with wokeness than academic achievement and they fail the kids!!!
If the sate offered $7,000 per kid in vouchers and Lilly subsidized that amount, kids with talent wouldn’t be stuck in an under-performing school.
You can thank your state republicans for destroying the curriculums of our schools and then making it even worse at the local level.
Fishers schools and washington township announced they are no longer teaching social studies or science in K-6 anymore. we are dumbing down the next generation on a daily basis
I don’t care if taxpayers want vouchers. First, the state must take care of its legal responsibility: a “free and appropriate public education.” It’s impossible to do that effectively if the current voucher and charter systems draw money from the same pot as public schools.
In response to JJ Frankie J’s comment: I agree with your first paragraph. But science and social studies are still being taught in Wash Twp. in K-6. Just confirmed with a current parent.
Research proves that early education is the best path to better learning in subsequent years, so a top priority for IPS should be providing free universal Pre-K education. The Lilly grant program offers Indianapolis public schools a game-changing opportunity that would prove priceless for our kids.
What a generous gift. Where would Indianapolis be without Lilly and the Lilly Endowment. Thank you.