The Mind Trust and the City of Indianapolis will spend $5 million to nearly double the city's 23 charter schools by 2016. The Charter School Incubator will begin granting $1 million each to three to five teams in June 2012, with the goal of seeding charter school networks to expand within and beyond Indianapolis

The Mind Trust, an Indianapolis-based non-profit that supports education innovation and reform, was awarded a $500,000 grant by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in support of The Mind Trust's Cities for Education Entrepreneurship Trust (CEE-Trust) initiative, a growing network of 18 city-based non-profits, foundations, and mayors' offices committed to promoting entrepreneurial education solutions to some of the country's toughest education challenges.

The Mind Trust is laying plans to hand out up to five $1 million grants next June to teams of educational entrepreneurs who would use the money to develop and launch innovative charter schools in Indianapolis. It often takes bold action to produce meaningful results. That makes us hopeful that a bold move by The Mind Trust will make a difference in the lives of public-school students in Indianapolis for years to come.

The Mind Trust launches its Charter School Incubator to build the nation's best charter school networks in Indianapolis.

The education innovation group already has nearly $3.9 million in handâ€"including donations from the city of Indianapolis and the Eli Lilly and Company Foundationâ€"to fund the grants, and says it has two more national funders interested. Mind Trust plans to hand out three to five grants in June 2012, and one or two annually for a few years after that.

The OneAmerica Foundation, Inc. is pleased to announce its largest contribution ever to support K-12 public education initiatives. The Foundation is making a $100,000 contribution to The Mind Trust in 2011 and will consider additional annual contributions of $100,000 in each of the next four years (2012 through 2015) for a total gift of $500,000. The OneAmerica Foundation is the charitable arm of OneAmerica Financial Partners, Inc.