Joseph F. Miller Foundation 1000 Miller Centre 422 West Michigan Street Indianapolis, IN 46202           Joe Miller with his youngest sister Nicole.   A successful entrepreneur, Joe Miller has been making meaningful contributions to dozens of groups since the 1970’s, helping to advance their important work in humanitarian and social causes. Through personal commitments of time and money, Joe has long been involved with AIDS education and prevention efforts. His longtime friend, Bruce Voeller, PhD (the scientist who gave AIDS its name) was the founder of the Los Angeles based Mariposa Education and Research Foundation. An early supporter of Mariposa’s important work in the early 1980’s, Joe served as Co-Chair of the Mariposa board of directors from 1991-1995. Joe’s 2005 gift to the Damien Center (Indiana’s largest HIV/AIDS service provider) to underwrite the “Joseph F. Miller Center for HIV Testing and Prevention”, contributed to his growing legacy as a philanthropic warrior in the battle against this dreadful disease. In the late 1980s, Joe traveled frequently to Brazil where he donated his time to help educate and survey street kids turned sex workers in Rio de Janeiro. Joe saw firsthand the incredible number of homeless youth who faced the devastating effects of AIDS, and realized the overwhelming task of trying to help them. He began sponsoring Ashoka Foundation Fellows who were internationally recognized HIV/AIDS educators and prevention workers in Rio de Janeiro, and in Bangkok, Thailand – two places where the disease had taken hold, but had not spread as widely as it already had in Africa. At the time, there was real hope that widespread devastation such as Africa’s could be prevented in Brazil and Thailand. At the same time and long before the internet offered effective global communications essential for third world country collaborations, Joe worked with organizations such as the Society for Adolescent Medicine, the Center for Population Options, the National Network of Runaway and Youth Services, ChildHope, and other groups, to attempt the development of a clearinghouse to assist groups working with the world’s homeless youth. Back in the United States, Joe spent several years as the board chair of the Indiana AIDS Fund shortly after its inception. A partnership of the National AIDS Fund, the Indiana AIDS Fund was advanced to a solid foundation before Joe retired from the post in 2000. The Indiana AIDS Fund is the largest funder of HIV/AIDS programs in Indiana, and is recognized as one of the most successful National AIDS Fund Partners in the United States. Joe was the recipient of the Indiana AIDS Fund Braveheart Award in 2005. From 1993-1996, Joe was a board member of Indiana Cares, the nation’s second oldest HIV/AIDS education and prevention organization (founded shortly after the Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York City). He is currently a board member of the Damien Center, named to their Earl Connor Society in 2002 for being a key benefactor. Joe has also been a director or board member of other national and regional organizations focused on human sexuality, such as New York City based SIECUS. An active advocate of civil rights and a promoter of inclusive, populist government policies, Joe made the largest single contribution in the history of the ACLU Indiana. A board member since 1996, he currently serves on the ACLU Indiana foundation board. Joe was awarded the Robert Risk Award in 2000 and the Founders Day Award in 2003 for his service to the ACLU Indiana. Joe was a founding director of the Indiana Stonewall Democrats (a chapter of the National Stonewall Democrats). This statewide GLBT group focuses on helping elect Democrats who proactively support human rights issues, hate crimes and non-discrimination laws, and domestic partner benefits in Indiana. In 2003, Joe created the Joseph F. Miller Challenge, which was the catalyst for the Indiana Stonewall Democrats becoming one of the most financially successful Stonewall chapters in the nation during the 2004 election cycle. Among the awards and recognitions for his contributions as a longtime civic leader, Joe has twice been named a Sagamore of the Wabash: in 1997 by then Governor Frank O’Bannon, and again in 2005 by then Governor Joe Kernan. The “Sagamore” is the highest award presented by an Indiana Governor. In 1995, former Governor Evan Bayh appointed Joe to the Indiana Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sport. A former board member of Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana, the nation’s largest statewide preservationist group, Joe headquarters his businesses in an historic African-American church he renovated into a downtown Indianapolis office building. Born in a Quebec City orphanage to an unwed mother, Joe and his twin brother were adopted together as infants by an Indiana couple and raised on a farm. In what was one of the most profound events of his life, after a search that began in 1996, and some time after his adoptive parents had passed away, in January 2001 Joe finally met his birth mother and biological family for the first time. Today Joe spends a great deal of time in Montreal with his mother, his sisters, and his nieces and nephews. Joe with his nephew Laurier and niece Mirabelle. Top      © 2007 Joseph F. Miller Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved.