Rush County Community Foundation

ABOUT The Rush County Community Foundation is a tax-exempt public charity that allows people to establish permanent endowment funds within the scope of one large foundation. We also offer an inexpensive, value-added way to establish a named family fund. The distributions from these separate funds – and the principal if the donor desires – are available to respond to emerging opportunities and needs in Rush County or elsewhere, according to the donor’s charitable wishes. Our personalized services have helped individuals, families, and businesses create more than 150 permanent endowments from gifts and bequests. These unique funds are as varied as the donors who created them. The funds range in value from $5,000 to millions of dollars and support a variety of community needs. A fourteen member Board of Directors govern the Rush County Community Foundation. Directors determine policy, endowment development, and provide oversight of the Foundation MISSION The Rush County Community Foundation, the foundation of Rush County’s future, is a nonprofit public charity established in 1991 to serve donors, award grants and scholarships, and provide leadership to enrich and enhance the quality of life in Rush County, Indiana, not only today, but for generations to come. The Rush County Community Foundation helps people of all means improve their community now and in the future. We help donors provide grant-making dollars for not-for-profit organizations that serve Rush County citizens. HISTORY The Rush County Community Foundation was created in 1991 in response to the Lilly Endowment, Inc. Giving Indiana Funds for Tomorrow (GIFT) Initiative. Knowing that a Community Foundation could be a beneficial community resource, three Rush County friends, Rick Levi, Paul Barada, and Danny Earnest, saw the GIFT challenge as an opportunity for our philanthropic community. GIFT encouraged donations to permanent endowment funds to occur by providing matching dollars to successful organizations and offered the jumpstart needed to begin a local Community Foundation for our own Rush County. From our humble beginnings of assets at $85,000 to today’s endowments in excess of $12 million, the Rush County Community Foundation’s success has been a result of the generosity of people like you.