In 1977, the Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee (Gipc) formed a long-range planning committee charged with making GIPC a more effective organization in the community. This planning committee suggested the formation of a separate organization whose members would be chief executive officers (CEOs) of the city’s leading business firms. 

The first meeting for this new group was convened by the chairmen of Lilly Endowment, Inc., American Fletcher National Bank, Indiana National Bank, and Merchants National Bank on September 14, 1977. During this event, 52 leaders from prominent local businesses and organizations agreed to the formal establishment of the Corporate Community Council (CCC).

The CCC’s purpose was to enhance the participation of corporate leaders in identifying, understanding, and supporting significant needs and opportunities in the Indianapolis area, with special attention to cultural, economic, educational, and social concerns. The council partnered with existing community organizations to accomplish this work, including GIPC, the Indianapolis Chamber Of Commerce, and the United Way Of Central Indiana. These groups assisted the CCC by providing staffing support, processing grant requests, and administering funding for approved projects.

Project approval required a two-thirds majority vote from council members, which included not only corporate leaders but also the governor of Indiana, the mayor of Indianapolis, the president of Indiana University, the president of Purdue University, and the vice president of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (Iupui). Approved projects were funded by a combination of council membership dues and a formula-based assessment, the latter determined by the organization’s decision on projects for the ensuing year and their attendant costs.

Major projects supported by the Corporate Community Council included the Hoosier Dome, National Sports Festival Iv, the Tenth Pan American Games, and the relocation of the headquarters of Kiwanis International from Chicago to Indianapolis. The organization also underwrote more than half of the operating expenses for Indianapolis Project, Inc. and the Indianapolis Economic Development Corporation (now known as Indy Partnership ).

In 1998, the Corporate Community Council disbanded following a commissioned report that highlighted Central Indiana’s poorly coordinated corporate leadership efforts and the negative impacts this issue could have on the region’s economic development. This decision was made to support the creation of a new corporate-based organization that would focus not just on Indianapolis but the entire Central Indiana region.

The Corporate Community Council formed the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership (CICP) in 1999 to broaden the region’s community and economic development strategy. CICP formed six talent and industry sector initiatives: Biocrossroads, Techpoint, Conexus Indiana, Energy Systems Network, Agrinovus Indiana, and Ascend Indiana. 

The Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program released Rethinking Cluster Initiatives (2018), which describes CICP as “one of the most impactful business and civic leadership groups in the nation.

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