Innovation

2025 is the fifth year The Meridian Foundation will recognize nonprofit innovation with Arago Honor Awards. The award amount will vary depending on the number of nonprofits being considered with a total pool of about $125,000.

We continue to be astonished by the number of innovative nonprofits in our community.

All nonprofits in the areas of arts, culture and humanities, education, environment and animal, health and human services in central Indiana are invited to complete the short inquiry form posted on our website. The categories used by the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) system is used by the IRS and the Foundation Center to classify nonprofit organizations. This question is on the longer application form we use for consideration.

The longer Arago Honor form for invited applicants asks if the nonprofit’s innovation is designed to incrementally improve an existing body of work or should be seen as a brand new idea disrupting an entire sector. There is no right or wrong answer, but this is where we glimpse the vision of leadership.

How do we define innovation?

We continue to clarify that solving a problem creatively is at the heart of nonprofit innovation for our recognition work. Being able to succinctly state the problem you are addressing and why your approach is uniquely positioned to create change is critical to making your case and is the first question in the Arago Honor short inquiry form by the Meridian Foundation.

Our basic concept of innovation continues to be that Innovation is a creative break in practice, large or small, solving a community problem.

Thinking broadly, our work in providing these awards remains driven by these words:

Innovation is the organization’s ability to break the culture, to do things in a new and different way, to take advantage of new opportunities and/or deal with new threats. Innovation results by serving new clients, delivering new services, collaborating with others, or developing new revenue streams. Innovation is a substantial change in practice and positively compliments the mission of the organization.

When considering if their work fits the definition, nonprofits should be able to prove their innovative program is distinctive and adds value to the community. Innovative organizations know how to use their environment to promote change. Successful innovating organizations rely on their mission, use collaboration to accomplish goals, promote ideas among staff members, listen to stakeholders, and continually measure performance. Evidence that the innovation adds to the organizations sustainability also builds the nonprofit’s case as an innovator.