Tony Dungy not-for-profit All Pro Dad gets state dollars, but little scrutiny

The Tampa, Florida-based not-for-profit All Pro Dad is one of the few organizations explicitly funded by Indiana taxpayers with its own budget line item. But the state agency tasked with overseeing the contract, the Department of Child Services, sidestepped questions about administering the grant with the little-known entity, founded in 1997 by former Indianapolis Colts Coach Tony Dungy.

Dungy, in prior interviews, has said the inspiration for the program came from his struggle to be a better father while balancing his work commitments.

“We (coaches) were so busy and we’re putting a lot of time into these 53 players that we have on our team but we were not doing a good job with our families,” Dungy told NBC’s Today show in 2021. “We came up with a slogan, ‘It takes work to be an All Pro football player (and) it takes the same amount of work to be an All Pro Dad.’”

The organization didn’t respond to several requests for comment made through its Indiana lobbyist. Though living in Florida, Dungy still frequents Indiana and will headline the Indiana Chamber’s annual awards dinner this November.

What is All Pro Dad?

The mission of All Pro Dad is to “(help) men to be better dads … (to) inspire and equip fathers to be actively involved in their children’s lives,” as detailed in tax filings. On the ground, fathers spend time grabbing breakfast with their children at hundreds of school-based chapters or attend an All Pro Dad Experience at a local professional team facility or stadium.

Legislators didn’t spend much time explaining the 2021 decision to allocate $250,000 each budget year to All Pro Dad. Nor did it get much attention when the General Assembly upped the amount to $350,000 earlier this year.

Rep. Jeff Thompson, the House’s primary budget architect, was the only lawmaker who responded to an interview request—even though the budget line item first appeared in the Senate version of the budget in 2021.

Thompson highlighted research indicating that present fathers in a child’s life decrease their risk of incarceration later in life.

“We know that children who have an active father in their life … when we talk about how they do in school, they do much better,” Thompson said. “It’s just a good investment (to) have active fathers in children’s lives because the results speak for themselves—they will come out better in the end.”

The contract with All Pro Dad includes that explanation, saying research showed that children with actively involved fathers attended school more consistently, had better grades, developed fewer behavioral problems and demonstrated an increased ability to learn.

Contract with DCS

All Pro Dad is the biggest program offered by the Florida-based Family First, which seeks to “provide parenting, marriage and relationship truth that helps people love their family well and gives them greater hope for the future,” according to the organization’s 990 forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service.

Revenue for Family First jumped to nearly $10.6 million for 2022, up from $5.3 million the previous year, and All Pro Dad was one of its largest expenses at $5.5 million.

The entity’s Indiana contract requires that the organization grow its chapters (in Marion, St. Joseph, Hamilton, Lake, Grant and Madison Counties), take attendance at chapter events and document relationships built with DCS-contracted Father Engagement providers as well as school administrators. It has more than 100 chapters in Indiana.

But measuring the success of All Pro Dad is on the state—primarily DCS, with assistance from the Department of Education (DOE). They’re tasked with analyzing “performance changes” for students, especially children who’ve encountered DCS, at schools where there are chapters.

“As part of the grant agreement, DCS required Family First, Inc. to prioritize All Pro Dad chapter development through school systems in counties with a high level of families involved in the child welfare system. DCS works with Department of Education-sourced data to monitor the impact of these school-partnering chapters,” DCS and DOE said in a joint statement in late July.

“Their work—combined with other DCS programming and services—has contributed toward a diminution of children in care and improvement in general child safety in those localities,” the agencies continued.

But DCS sidestepped repeated questions dating back to July 11 from the Capital Chronicle about how they tracked the organization’s goals and when the agency expected results. The organization’s launch came mid-pandemic, but DCS didn’t elaborate on COVID-19’s impact, nor did it share information from the organization’s monthly progress reports.

The statement noted that the $250,000 budget line item was a “minimum” amount over the biennium. Family First reported that Indiana paid the organization $315,402 in 2022.

Foster parent program

Dungy, the retired football coach, has actively endorsed fostering and adoption. As recently as 2021, he said he had 11 foster children living with him, and he previously shared that he’d adopted seven children.

DCS’ first contract with All Pro Dad was an 18-month, $500,000 campaign to recruit foster parents that ended in 2019.

In 2018, while promoting the partnership, Dungy told Indiana reporters that the backlog of Black and biracial children needing homes became apparent when an assistant coach sought flexible working hours to adopt.

“That caught me by surprise because everything in my mind, everything I’ve heard was, ‘Oh, it’s so hard to adopt and you have to go to Russia or you have to go to China or there’s people on five-year waiting lists,” Dungy told a Statehouse File reporter. “… We were probably like so many people just cruising along, not knowing that there was a need. And that’s what our mission is at All Pro Dad and Family First.”

DCS didn’t respond to questions about that contract—including why the state opted not to renew, though the organization didn’t go long without an Indiana contract when lawmakers stepped in two years later.

DCS annual reports for 2021, 2022 and 2023 all have identical blurbs on the program’s outcome: “The strategy has been finalized and all 3 events have been planned. The first two events were held on 5/18, 6/8, and the final event will be held on 7/27. The state has garnered more than 900 leads from this partnership.”

None of the reports say what happened with those 900 foster parent leads.