The Mind Trust: Attracting Supporting and Empowering Educational Entreprenuers in Indianapolis, Indiana

how the mind trust chooses ventures

Ventures have to meet high standards in order to attract resources and support from the Venture Fund.  Most importantly, organizations must demonstrate a highly successful track record with a significant impact on student achievement, graduation rates, or post-graduation outcomes in the communities they currently serve.  We prioritize initiatives that address unmet or poorly met needs in Indianapolis. 

Venture Fund resources are intended to help an organization start its work in Indianapolis, but not to fund its operations long-term. Nor is the Venture Fund interested in bringing to the city organizations that create a permanent drain on philanthropic dollars. Instead, the Venture Fund prioritizes enterprises with real potential to tap into ongoing streams of public funding, fee income, or other revenue sources that eliminate the need for continual infusions from the Venture Fund itself or other donors.

The Mind Trust also supports ventures in non-financial ways.  Staff members help organizations forge partnerships with area public schools, identify talented local people to lead the replication effort, and connect ventures with other community partners that can help them succeed.

For each venture, The Mind Trust establishes clear, measurable goals for the organization’s impact on children and the community.  The Mind Trust monitors ventures closely against these agreed-upon benchmarks to increase the likelihood of success and to help ventures make corrections if they get off course.

The Mind Trust does not accept unsolicited proposals for the Venture Fund.