Landmark Columbus Foundation
Purpose
Landmark Columbus Foundation exists to demonstrate what design excellence can mean to a community, earned through discipline, proven in public, and cared for as a legacy for the future.
Vision
Cities treat design excellence as essential to building communities worthy of commitment. Columbus provides the proof, method, and shared knowledge that others can adapt.
Mission
Landmark Columbus Foundation (LCF) cares for, celebrates, and advances the cultural heritage of Columbus, Indiana, and works with other communities to strengthen civic life through design excellence.
Values
Stewardship
We act with long-term stewardship and responsibility.
Legacy
We honor and care for Columbus's modern legacy.
Excellence
We use design excellence to strengthen the quality and dignity of public life.
Accountability
We earn trust through disciplined process and shared accountability.
Program Arms
To fulfill its mission, Landmark Columbus Foundation works through four focus areas, each carrying the same framework in a different register.
Civic Design Institute is LCF’s intellectual platform for defining, measuring, and sharing the civic conditions that make design excellence possible. It defines and teaches what design excellence as a civic practice means, and gathers, clarifies, and publishes what that practice produces over time.
In October 2026, CDI presents Prove It: A National Summit on Design Excellence as Civic Practice in Columbus — the first public test of LCF’s framework.
Progressive Preservation cares for design excellence over time through research, documentation, conservation, and advocacy for culturally significant places in Bartholomew County.
Current work includes the Progressive Preservation Talks: Schools Edition, 100 Places of Bartholomew County, and the Columbus City Cemetery Unmarked Graves project.
Exhibit Columbus is a public design program in Columbus, Indiana, now in its tenth year. It tests design excellence in public by commissioning site-responsive installations and convening national and international conversations about how design, art, and architecture strengthen civic life.
Monumental Gestures applies the civic design method in other cities, beginning with Indianapolis. Led by Artistic Director Sarah Urist Green, it transforms public spaces through ambitious art experiences that invite conversation, amplify voices, and celebrate histories.
Current work includes The Monument Knows, a Mellon Foundation-supported project reimagining Monument Circle, and the Indy Riverfront Plan.
Board of Directors
Tracy Haddad
Chair
Owner, Golden Endeavors, LLC.
Laura Miller
ViceChair
Senior Director Program Strategy, Eli Lilly and Company
Surekha DiOrio
Treasurer
Chief Financial Officer, Indiana Youth Services Association and Director of Financial Services, Mission Management Services
Edie Blakeslee
Secretary
President and CEO, Heritage Fund
Mark Elwood
Immediate Past Chair
Chairman, Elwood Staffing
Rick Johnson
Founding Board Chair
President and CEO, Johnson Ventures, Inc.
Bill Browne
Owner, RATIO Architects, Inc.
Mary Ferdon
The Honorable Mayor of the City of Columbus
Tobi Herron
Executive Director, Administrative Resources association
Kyle Inskeep
News Anchor, Sinclair Broadcast Group
Betsy Laskey
Columbus Community Supporter and Volunteer
Hutch Schumaker
President, Coca-Cola Bottling Co., Columbus, IN, Inc.
Nicholas Sprague
Director of Business Development, General Counsel at Sprague Company Hotel Developers
Misty Weisensteiner
Executive Director, Columbus Area Visitors Center
Team
We are a dedicated team of professionals united by a belief in the power of design to shape meaningful places.
Learn more about our team, which brings together diverse expertise and a shared commitment to advancing architecture, art, and design in Columbus and beyond.
Annual Reports
Since the organization’s founding in 2019, Landmark Columbus Foundation has released six annual reports: 2020–2025.
Click here to read and download any one of them.
A Legacy of Peace, Justice, and Equity
Landmark Columbus Foundation seeks to involve and engage all demographics of society as it fulfills its mission to care for, celebrate, and advance the cultural heritage in Bartholomew County. We are actively creating projects and events that are inclusive and accessible, and shaping platforms for diverse voices to be heard and involved in everything we do. We constantly strive to better understand the inequalities in our community, both past and present, and are committed to creating systemic change that benefits all.
Read our full statement about creating A Legacy of Peace, Justice, and Equity.
Organization History
Columbus has long demonstrated that working together with shared values and thoughtful designers is an excellent way to build a great community—referred to locally as the “Value of Good Design.” Investing in this value created Columbus’ remarkable collection of architecture, art, and design, which has become a defining characteristic of our community and the city’s identity.
In 2015, Heritage Fund—The Community Foundation of Bartholomew County launched Landmark Columbus Foundation to ensure the Columbus values and investments in design excellence are well cared for and can remain a source of inspiration for future generations. With the support of many in the community and those around the state and country, this program quickly became a community asset that makes a big difference.
In late 2019, Landmark Columbus Foundation became an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. With a five-year leadership grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. in partnership with Heritage Fund, LCF built its staff, programs, and endowment over the following years. By 2025, the organization’s endowment had surpassed its $3 million goal, reached through leadership gifts and broad community support. In March 2026, the board adopted Design Excellence as Civic Practice as LCF’s governing strategic framework, positioning Columbus as proof of a replicable civic discipline and LCF as the institution responsible for defining, sustaining, and sharing it.
Columbus, Indiana
Civic Identity
We are Columbus, Indiana: Designed for Living—a town of 50,000 that nurtures the virtues of small in the most ambitious of ways—to be the best city of its size in America.
Learn more about our civic identity.
Endowment
The Landmark Columbus Foundation Endowment is a permanent fund that protects and sustains the Foundation’s mission to care for, celebrate, and advance the cultural heritage of Bartholomew County and like-minded communities. Grown through community leadership and generosity, the endowment ensures that LCF's work can endure, evolve, and serve more people for generations to come.
Learn more about our Endowment.