Dekko Foundation moves office

KENDALLVILLE, Ind. (Inside INdiana Business) — A decades-old private family foundation has moved its office to the Community Learning Center in Kendallville. The foundation joins a group of organizations housed in the center, which was established in 2019, after the community banded together to identify a use for a nearly 150,000 square-foot-former school building.

Foundation President Thomas Leedy says the move will help the foundation be a more efficient funder.

“We have the opportunity to work alongside these organizations and learn from them. That will help inform our efforts in all of our grantmaking priority areas and further the mission and vision that Mr. Dekko set forth for us,” Leedy said.

The third-floor office holds “hoteling” workspace for guests, a break room and boardroom. Leedy says the foundation continues to own and maintain Dekko’s former home on Baby Mountain in Kendallville, which served as the foundation’s office for nearly four decades. Leedy says the house will be used to offer programs that align with the mission of the foundation.

The foundation focuses its grantmaking efforts on a six-county area in Indiana: DeKalb, Kosciusko, LaGrange, Noble, Steuben and Whitley, along with six counties in Alabama, Iowa and Minnesota, where Dekko held business and personal interests.