Front Porch Alliance doesn’t run programs. Instead, it responds to problems in the community that no program would have the foresight to resolve. FPA is a partnership between City Hall and the values-shaping institutions of Indianapolis. It coordinates civic groups and government agencies to empower local communities to run their own programs to improve Indianapolis’ neighborhoods. In the past two years, it has facilitated relationships between more than 400 churches, synagogues, neighborhood associations, and businesses. It works to secure private resources for civic organizations, and, when appropriate, it finds public resources as well. Working from the principle that government must first do no harm to the insitutions of civil society, it enables them to expand the good work they already do.

On the west side of Indianapolis FPA helped begin a new community center by donating computers, assisting in grant-writing, and organizing fund raisers. It helped a local church to convert a former crack house into a drug counseling center by providing resources and partnerships. It helped the center renovate its building and train its staff by building relationships with a local hospital and businesses.

Contact: Mr. Olgen Williams, resident of Haughville in Indianapolis’ near west side and co-chair of the Front Porch Alliance Roundtable.

Excerpted from “”Caring for Our Civic Souls”", by Olgen Williams for Blueprint Magazine, April 1, 1999.