Inspiring a (Nonprofit) Community

Foellinger Foundation invests heavily in Capacity Building grants because they help fulfill our mission to support effective leaders and nonprofits.

Such organizations are always seeking ways to reach, stretch, grow and excel. Capacity Building is about helping an organization move to its next level of effectiveness. 

For the Foundation’s 50th anniversary in 2008, the Board introduced a new type of Capacity Grant—the Inspire Grant. The two-phase Inspire Grant offers an opportunity for renewal and reflection, and then action.

In 2008, Cancer Services of Northeast Indiana received an Inspire Grant that made a lasting impact on the organization. At this particular time of economic uncertainty, the Inspire Grant allowed Cancer Services the chance to explore complementary care and wellness support for its patients and caregivers. Staff and board members researched and experienced various activities including massage therapy and nutrition counseling and visited other similar organizations during Phase I.

The grant made it possible for Cancer Services to take an idea and see where it would lead. In Phase II, they reviewed the experiences and implemented various measures of complementary care by training massage therapists in the specifics of working with oncology patients, offering those services at Cancer Services and educating the medical community on (at the time) cutting-edge thoughts in wellness therapy.

Since the first Inspire Grant, Cancer Services now has two massage therapists on staff and offers group classes for yoga, tai chi, stretching, meditation and more. Cancer Services has been able to adapt to—and, in many ways, lead—the way cancer patients are supported in our community.

“The Inspire Grant was energizing to the whole organization. We were able to take a risk to explore the unknown because of Foellinger Foundation,” says Executive Director Dianne May.

Now, over ten years later, it is time for Cancer Services to see what’s changed in the field and reassess the community’s needs. The organization received another Inspire Grant to research the situation, see how other organizations are handling these programs and allow Dianne May to take a sabbatical, spending a week at the John C. Campbell Folk School to focus on creative exploration.

Capacity Building grants may be submitted at any time throughout the year. All eligible Allen County nonprofits may apply, even if they are already receiving other Foellinger support.