Lilly Endowment offers Indiana's Boone County foundation $1.5 million to match endowment gifts 2 to 1

The Community Foundation of Boone County in Indiana has received a $1.5 million matching grant from Lilly Endowment Inc., the Boone County Reporter reported on October 11. The grant comes through Giving Indiana Funds for Tomorrow, known as GIFT IX, the endowment's ninth round of support for the state's community foundations.

The grant provides $2 for every $1 contributed to the foundation's unrestricted endowment, the Reporter said. The foundation said it intends to use the grant to build that endowment, which supports needs in the Boone County community.

How the match works

At $2 for every $1, the full $1.5 million would be unlocked by $750,000 in qualifying gifts. The coverage we read does not give a deadline for raising them or the current size of the endowment.

It is the second $1.5 million Lilly match for the Boone County foundation in about two years. Under the previous round, GIFT VIII, it exceeded a fundraising goal of $825,000 and secured $1.5 million in matching funds, with more than $2.3 million in total going to its work, Current reported in January.

The statewide program

Lilly Endowment announced GIFT IX in 2025 and allocated up to $271.5 million for it, according to its program page. Matching grants totaling $124.5 million were awarded in 2026, ranging from $250,000 to $13 million, to help community foundations develop unrestricted assets and support projects and programs that address community needs.

Unrestricted money matters because a community foundation can direct it to whatever local needs are most pressing, rather than only to purposes a donor set in advance.

What other foundations can learn

In our view, a match changes the ask: a donor can be told that each dollar given to the unrestricted endowment brings two more from Lilly. Lilly has used the same tool on single projects, such as its $20 million grant for Origin Park.