CFSI Adds Quality of Place Focus to Area Grantmaking

Each year, the Community Foundation of Southern Indiana makes nearly $350,000 in grants from its unrestricted Community Impact Fund to support the residents of Clark and Floyd counties. Since 1991, these grants have helped nonprofit organizations make a positive impact in our community by addressing our region’s most pressing needs – supporting arts and culture, community development, health and human services, education, the environment and more.

Today, Southern Indiana’s amenities and great quality of life continue to attract new growth and opportunities as more businesses and families are calling Clark and Floyd counties home. Capitalizing on this momentum, the Community Foundation of Southern Indiana announced that beginning on July 1, 2020 it will begin designating half of its annual grantmaking funds to Pathways to Progress Grants which will support initiatives aimed at improving our region’s quality of place.

Linda Speed, president and CEO for the Community Foundation said, “Getting to this point has been an intentional and thoughtful process. Our board of directors takes seriously its responsibility to steward the funds we’ve been entrusted with and the important role those funds play in addressing local issues.” She continued, “Deciding to transform our grantmaking by focusing on quality of place wasn’t an easy choice. But, after hearing from our community and learning how increased accessibility to parks, trails and other public spaces would help connect our neighborhoods, improve our sense of community and how the ripple effects of doing so could help transform our region, it was clear this needed to be a priority.”

The Foundation’s Pathways to Progress Grants will focus on serving people with the least access to safe, high-quality public places and amenities, typically those who have low incomes and/or who have transportation or mobility challenges or physical and/or mental differences. When their lives are improved, our communities are more welcoming and attractive to all residents, tourists, and employers.

For these populations, the Foundation will work with nonprofit partners to improve:

While half of the Foundation’s Community Impact Fund grants will be allocated towards Pathways to Progress Grants, the other half will continue to support the various needs of our community that are being addressed by the region’s nonprofit organizations.  

Speed continued, “We’re excited to add this strategic focus to our grantmaking portfolio. There is tremendous progress being made towards improving the quality of place in our community and we’re excited to build upon that momentum by strategically investing our charitable capital in ways that will enhance our area and attract new opportunities to the region.”

For more information on the Foundation’s Pathways to Progress Grants, visit www.cfsoutherninidana.com.