Current Publishing: "Making Connections: Hamilton County Community Foundation focuses support on nonprofits, services"

The article below, published by Current Publishing, shares how Hamilton County Community Foundation is refocusing its 2025 strategy to strengthen local nonprofits and expand support for housing, childcare, education, and essential services by investing in grants, capacity building, and deeper community collaboration. See original article on Current Publishing here.

It’s challenging to serve an area like Hamilton County, with busy, growing cities on one end and smaller, rural communities on the other. To address those very different needs as well as the changing needs of the county overall, Hamilton County Community Foundation launched a new strategic plan early in 2025, and its implementation is starting to bear fruit.

HCCF President and CEO Danielle Stiles-Polk said the previous strategic plan was six or more years old — pre-COVID-19 and pre-so many other changes — and it was time to rebrand.

“The world was totally different when that strategic plan had launched, and it was based on focus areas,” she said. “It looked a little bit more needs-focused. I think the reality that set in, and a lot of our conversations were like, ‘The Community Foundation is not going to singlehandedly solve (for example) food insecurity in Hamilton County.’”

So, she said, they flipped the script and went back to the roots of what community foundations do best — make connections, bring people together and support nonprofit organizations through grants and education.

The new strategic plan is the result of a lengthy process, funded through the Lilly Endowment Giving Indiana Funds for Tomorrow initiative, that involved a community-needs assessment, listening sessions and some driving.

“We spent time out in the community, just really trying to understand what Hamilton County needs,” she said. “I think it suffers — that might be a little bit of a strong word — but there’s always that, ‘It’s Hamilton County and everything is golden’ perception.”

But, she said, there are a lot of people who are struggling for various reasons. Some might face food insecurity. Others might lack access to child care, and still others might be on the edge of losing their home.

“We really tried to better understand what that looked like for the county as a whole, and really drill down, even into specific locations within the county,” she said. “It’s hard to look at data broadly, because you’re looking at everything from Carmel to Arcadia.”

Through numerous conversations, HCCF honed its new strategic plan to focus on four key areas — affordable housing, education and training, social services and childcare solutions. Stiles-Polk noted that Hamilton County has many nonprofits that address those concerns.

“Hamilton County has, I think, one of the strongest nonprofit ecosystems of probably anywhere,” she said. “I would hold it up to any other county in the state, because it’s a group of people who are running organizations and ensuring that there’s not a ton of duplicative services, but there are supports in every different area (and) all of the organizations work really well together.”

That means HCCF can focus on supporting those nonprofits in their missions through direct grants and through finding the best fit for its donor-advised funds. Foundation officials also made a point of diversifying where its grants go.

“We made a strategic-plan goal to increase the number of awards that we made to nonprofits that either had never received a grant before or who hadn’t received an award for the last five years,” Stiles-Polk said. “We set the metric at 10 percent, just to start … and I think we got to, like, 15 percent this year.”

Besides those grants, she said HCCF is gearing up to offer new services to further help nonprofits, including shared services — marketing, bookkeeping, etc. — and training programs to help nonprofit officials be more effective.

HCCF also opened its space in Fishers for other organizations to meet, is working with food pantries and other organizations focused on improving food resources, is the fund holder for the county’s Dolly Parton Imagination Library program, and supported the county Behavioral Health Collaborative as it worked toward opening the Rely Center in Noblesville.

“We have helped fund those collaboratives, as well as have been participants in the work they’re doing,” Stiles-Polk said. “As we kind of grow and evolve our strategies and where they’re going, those may shift some over time, but I think the model of trying to bring people together to solve systems-level issues for the county specifically will continue.”

Stiles-Polk credited the foundation’s staff and board for HCCF’s accomplishments.

“We have a team of rockstars who are working every day to ensure that we are present in the community and focused in the same direction,” she said.

For more, visit hamiltoncountycf.org.