INDIANAPOLIS — The Lilly Endowment has given a $10 million grant to Indiana's Bicentennial Nature Trust.
The grant announced Wednesday by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources brings to $30 million the amount of funding for the initiative to acquire more wilderness land to mark the state's 200th birthday in 2016. Gov. Mitch Daniels this year set aside $20 million in state funding for the trust.
President N. Clay Robbins of the Indianapolis-based endowment says the trust's encouragement of conservation philanthropy "is an excellent way to celebrate our state's bicentennial."
Former Gov. Ed Whitcomb and Bloomington businessman Steve Ferguson have provided gifts of land to the trust.
Indiana DNR says the trust's first 24 projects will receive a collective total of more than $4.7 million and preserve more than 3,000 acres.
