New center donated to IUPUI

INDIANAPOLIS -- Giving to the less fortunate is a big part of many faiths, but it's also a little studied phenomenon.\nA new Indiana University center created with a $5 million donation is preparing to take a close look at the link behind faith and charity.\nThe Lake Family Institute on Faith and Giving is believed to be the nation's first center for academic research on how religious beliefs affect charitable giving.\nIt will be headquartered at IU's Center on Philanthropy at IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis.\n"We know that there is a strong connection between religious affiliation and volunteering and giving," said Eugene Tempel, director of the Center on Philanthropy.\n"We want to explore more deeply why that is and what that means to religious institutions and giving to secular charities, as well."\nThe institute was made possible through donation from the children of the late Thomas and Marjorie Lake of Indianapolis.\nThomas Lake, who died in 1999, spent 22 years with the Lilly Endowment and is credited with upholding the Lilly family's commitment to religion through the endowment.\nThe endowment also funds education and community initiatives across Indiana and nationwide.\nThe institute will focus on researching the connection between philanthropy and religious values, as well as conducting workshops, lectures and mentoring programs for the Indianapolis community.\nThe institute also plans to hire a professor to teach at the center.\nRobert Wood Lynn, a retired Lilly Endowment official, will launch the institute early next year. The Rev. William Enright, senior pastor at Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis for 21 years, will become senior fellow and executive of the institute in early 2004.\n"My task will be to help the community -- its Jewish, Christian and Muslim congregations and its civic leaders -- in conversations about service and giving from a religious perspective," Enright said.\nThe institute joins the Indianapolis Center for Congregations and the Polis Center at IUPUI, which has which has spent eight years studying the role of religion and urban culture in Indianapolis.\n"Indianapolis is an amazing community, rich with religious diversity, where the level of volunteerism is very high, and where the size of the city allows for people of different faiths to make connections that may not happen so easily in larger cities," Enright said.