The Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment has announced grants totaling $177.8 million in support of Indiana-based community development projects and a nationwide initiative in Christianity and the arts.

Through its $300 million College and Community Collaboration initiative, launched at the beginning of this year, the endowment awarded $145.8 million to six colleges and universities in Indiana to support community development projects. The five-year implementation grants will support projects jointly envisioned by the institutions and local stakeholders to improve quality of life and place in their communities.

Recipients include Ball State University in Muncie, which was awarded $35 million to revitalize a commercial district adjacent to campus, including a performing arts center, owner-occupied residences, restaurants, and other retail outlets; Purdue University in West Lafayette, which will receive $25 million to improve early childhood education and child care as well as transportation access in a seven-county region; and Taylor University in Upland, which was awarded $30 million in support of a strategy to build or improve assets along a one-mile corridor, including a campus inn, residential properties and mixed-use retail spaces, renovations to the Upland Public Library, and an entrepreneurship program.

“In designing their proposed projects, it was evident that these colleges and universities engaged a wide-ranging group of community stakeholders to imagine and develop creative solutions to pressing campus and community needs,” said Lilly Endowment president Jennett M. Hill. “The institutions submitted proposals that revealed robust collaborative efforts reflective of the institutions’ willingness to learn from not only campus colleagues but from local residents and businesses to help shape projects with promising potential to enhance the quality of life on their campuses and in their local communities.”

In addition, the endowment awarded $32 million to Belmont University in Nashville for a nationwide initiative focused on Christianity and the arts. In addition to regularly convening artists, theologians, and church leaders, the initiative will support a variety of programming that will create and curate new works of art across multiple media, as well as award grants to commission new works of art, for organizations to broaden their reach, and collaborations among artists, scholars, and religious leaders.

“Belmont is deeply committed to the arts and diverse communities and traditions of Christian faith—as well as the intersections among them,” said Belmont University president Greg Jones. “This meaningful opportunity will strengthen our ongoing efforts and develop new efforts that will inspire wonder in people across the country and catalyze a national movement. We are so grateful to Lilly Endowment for its investment in this important initiative, and we look forward to the impact it will have on the public as well as with artists, scholars, and partner organizations.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Marsha Williamson Mohr)