Indianapolis-based Lilly Endowment Inc. has donated $3.5 million to The Mind Trust to train as many as 350 new teachers, Indianapolis-based Mind Trust announced Friday morning.

Mind Trust will use the money to support Teach For America, which trains recent college graduates for two-year teaching fellowships in high-need schools, and The New Teacher Project, which trains career-changing adults to be teachers.

The Mind Trust is a not-for-profit organization created by former Mayor Bart Peterson and David Harris, who served as Peterson's chief of charter schools. The group helped bring the New York-based New Teacher Project to Indianapolis in 2006, which resulted in the creation of the Indianapolis Teaching Fellows program at Marian University. And, in 2007, Mind Trust helped recruit New York-based Teach For America to Indianapolis, with some financial support from Lilly Endowment.

“Teach For America and The New Teacher Project teachers are achieving positive results for students and are therefore playing an important role in closing the achievement gap in Indianapolis,” said Sara B. Cobb, vice president of education at Lilly Endowment, in a prepared statement.