LEI Grants
At Governor Holcomb’s State of the State address on January 9, 2024, he announced that Lilly Endowment Inc. had gifted $250 million to the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), marking the largest award given to a single organization in Lilly Endowment’s more than 85 year history. The grant will be used to compliment the state’s READI investment, providing even more funding opportunities for critical quality of place projects statewide and fueling the creation of unique, vibrant and livable communities throughout Indiana for generations to come.
Blight Reduction & Redevelopment
The funding will allocate $185 million to blight remediation and redevelopment projects that align with regional development strategies focused on improving quality of life and quality of place.
Eligible activities:
- Must include properties that are either vacant, deteriorating, underutilized, or blighted that have demonstrated an impact on the valuation of the subject assets and surrounding property values.
- May include rehabbing historic structures, repurposing closed industrial plants to create inviting community spaces or mixed-use developments, or demolishing vacant, single-family homes to construct new affordable housing.
The IEDC will administer and have sole discretion on which projects receive funding and determine the appropriate investment model (grant, loan, equity, terms and structure). Projects ultimately funded will have to align with READI 2.0 goals and KPIs. Project must begin construction within two years.
Arts and Culture
The funding will allocate $65 million to arts and culture projects that align with regional development strategies focused on improving quality of life and quality of place.
Eligible activities:
- Public art including murals, sculptures, installations, programmable lighting on key assets, or other artistic community improvements.
- Development of museums, performing arts venues, art centers, art studio complexes, or other culturally significant attractions or facilities (including improvements to existing facilities).
- Art and cultural competitions or festivals, provided the applicant demonstrates long-term funding commitments to sustain any such effort.
- Initiatives to attract nationally and internationally recognized arts and cultural performances to Indiana.
- Initiatives to support the further development of a region’s creatives and creative economy
- Development of visual architectural design elements that are unique to local communities
IEDC will administer and have sole discretion on which projects receive funding and determine the appropriate investment model (grant, loan, equity, terms and structure). IEDC will evaluate projects in coordination with Indiana Arts Commission and other partners. Projects ultimately funded will have to align with READI 2.0 goals and KPIs. Project must begin construction within two years.
Project Selection
The East Central Indiana Regional Partnership READI 2.0 Steering Committee is now accepting project applications for Regional Economic Acceleration and Development Initiative (READI) 2.0 funds and Lilly Endowment, Inc. (LEI) funds.
It is important that all information requested be included in this application. READI 2.0 funds and LEI funds are limited and will be reviewed using the East Central Indiana Scoring Rubric Tool found here before being presented to the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC) for consideration. Applications are due August 2nd, 2024, by 11:59 pm.
More information about READI and LEI funds can be found in the resource library on the IEDC’s website at https://indianareadi.com/resources.
For application review consideration, the following eligibility criteria must be met. Failure to do so may result in the submission not being reviewed for funding consideration. Eligible projects will have:
- All fields completed and all required attachments included.
- Clearly demonstrated project alignment with regional goals.
- Clearly demonstrated project alignment with state goals and key performance indicators (KPIs).
- A timeline for completion by the end of 2028.
Note: Please keep in mind that READI projects and LEI Blight Remediation and Redevelopment projects are required to have a 4:1 match. This breaks down to a 3:1 private match and 1:1 public match, which means for every $1 requested there must also be $3 dollars from private/philanthropic sources secured and $1 dollar from public funding sources secured. LEI Arts and Culture projects do not have a match requirement, but match will help the project be more competitive. READI funds CANNOT be the sole source of project funding. If your project is selected for the ECI READI project portfolio, the ECI READI team will work with you to develop your match requirements.
If you would like to save, please go to the bottom of the form and save. When saving, an email will be sent to the provided email address.
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to the staff at the East Central Indiana Regional Partnership at readi@forgeeci.com.