Mitch Daniels Leadership Foundation Receives Lumina Foundation Grant

The executive director of the Mitch Daniels Leadership Foundation announced a $100,000 grant from Lumina Foundation to bolster its educational and recruitment efforts. Lauren James says the funding will support their mission of enabling leaders and driving change by investing in Hoosier leaders who are prepared to be active, global citizens meaningfully contributing to civil society. 

“Our Foundation was started in 2013 to further our namesake’s example of bold and pragmatic change. Our signature program, the MDLF Fellowship, initiates dialogue and action around that change,” said James. “The program is a highly selective, statewide, two-year program of intense study. This grant will help us advance and improve participant access to the Fellowship Program as we ensure representation from diverse participants and rural communities.” 

More than 100 Hoosiers from 21 counties have participated in five classes of the MDLF Fellowship, During the program, Fellows learn about Indiana’s health and education outcomes, key economic drivers, meaningful civic engagement opportunities and also study how principles of individual liberty, personal responsibility and the importance of private enterprise uplift individuals and help strengthen the state.

“As our program has grown, so too has our network’s demand for this type of education,” stated James. “Our Fellows range from their mid-20s to their mid-50s and come from cities like Gary, Fort Wayne, Evansville, Lafayette, Salem, and Bloomington. Some are government officials, some entrepreneurs, and some nonprofit leaders. For each of them, there are many others hungering to learn more. It is our aim to remove any sort of barrier for individuals to apply and participate in the two-year Fellowship, which is why there is no fee to participate.”

“Lumina’s goal is to prepare people for informed citizenship and for success in a global economy. Our grant with MDLF indicates that we share areas of focus of talent development, competency-based learning and social investment for all Hoosiers,” said Timothy Robinson, vice president of administration and partnerships at Lumina.

The grant will be used to improve the reach and promotion to a more diverse pool of Fellowship applicants, improve the quality of our current MDLF programs and launch new initiatives to impact more Hoosiers participants.

“Success to me will be at least 50 counties represented and over 200 Fellows reached by 2027,” James said.