Twenty-five years ago Lilly Endowment launched the GIFT (Giving Indiana Funds for Tomorrow) initiative to encourage and strengthen community foundations as vehicles to improve the quality of life in Indiana. Lilly Endowment recently announced their GIFT VI initiative and awarded the Marshall County Community Foundation matching dollars to help grow the vision. One of the requirements is that $250,000 of the total dollars matched must be raised for unrestricted endowed funds. Right now, every dollar you give to MCCF’s Community Fund may be matched dollar for dollar up to $250,000 – putting a total of $500,000 to work in our community and helping more great ideas take flight in Marshall County!
The Community Fund is one of the most flexible and responsive of the 325 funds at MCCF in addressing new and emerging community needs. Since the first grants of $10,000 were awarded from the Community Fund in 1995, over $3.2 million has been distributed to communities throughout Marshall County with projects ranging from those that support education, history, and arts and culture to those that support public safety, the environment, youth and family and community development.
The Marshall County Historical Society (MCHS) was one of the first recipients of an MCCF Community Fund grant in 1995. A more recent grant was awarded to support the MCHS Transportation Room which is used to show how Marshall County has developed and flourished around the transportation industry. The interactive lighted map further illustrates the proximity of Marshall County, Indiana as being the “crossroads” of northern Indiana, with four national roads that intersect the community and extend nationally from coast to coast. From the influences of business and industry, architecture, local flora and fauna, to historic Kiddie’s Day and the Blueberry Festival, the exhibits in the Transportation Room give an overall “flavor” of what makes Marshall County unique and why many area residents have chosen to call it “home!”
Contributions to the MCCF Community Fund may be made online at marshallcountycf.org or mailed to MCCF, PO Box 716, Plymouth, IN 46563. For more information, call 574.935.5159 or email info@marshallcountycf.org.
About the Marshall County Community Foundation
The Marshall County Community Foundation is a public charity with local roots that helps great ideas take flight through endowment philanthropy. Since 1991, donors to the Marshall County Community Foundation have built the community’s assets currently valued at more than $31 million and have returned over $12 million to Marshall County communities in grants and scholarships from over 300 funds. For more information about the Foundation, call 574.935.9159 or visit www.marshallcountycf.org.
