The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving has a new, $5 million Patricelli Family Fund, which nonprofit officials said will go to support civic, arts and cultural initiatives in the Greater Hartford area.

According to information from the foundation, Simsbury residents Robert and Margaret Patricelli are namesakes for the new fund, which is the largest donor-advised fund created in nearly a decade.

Robert Patricelli is a well-known serial entrepreneur who founded and sold various businesses in Connecticut.

The new fund will have a focus on providing support for civic, arts and cultural efforts in Hartford and its surrounding communities, and the initial $50,000 grant will go to the Brother Carl Hardrick Institute, a violence intervention and prevention group based in Hartford. The grant will be doled out over two years, according to the foundation.

The Brother Carl Hardrick Institute was founded in 2021 and headquartered in the Wilson Gray YMCA on Albany Avenue. Its mission is to train young people to become professional violence intervention workers, according to the institute’s website.

According to the foundation, the new Patricelli Family Fund will operate alongside the previously established Robert & Margaret Patricelli Family Foundation, which has been operating since 1997 after Robert Patricelli sold his company, Value Health.

“These will typically be larger multi-year grants, and we hope that by working with the Foundation we can partner with other leading philanthropic funds and families. My family has deep roots in Hartford, and we believe that it can once again become a leading multi-racial and multi-ethnic American city where people want to live and work,” Robert Patricelli said when announcing the new fund.