DETROIT — Four new grant investments totaling more than $5.4 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation are helping to build the next Detroit.
The grants address community development and neighborhood revitalization, education and job readiness for the city’s workforce, and the city’s development of a community wireless strategy.
Knight is investing $3.9 million in grants and low-interest loans in ShoreBank Enterprise Detroit (SED), a nonprofit affiliate of ShoreBank, which provides loans and technical assistance to grow small businesses located in the city. Knight joins Ford Foundation in pooling nearly $12 million, helping to create new economic development opportunities in Detroit and making it possible for minority contractors to participate in the ongoing revitalization of the city’s neighborhoods.
The innovative partnership is a significant component of the city’s growth and development strategy noted in a ShoreBank press conference featuring Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick today. The mayor has launched a Next Detroit Neighborhood Initiative that focuses on six specific neighborhoods.
The $3.9 million investment from Knight Foundation’s Transformation Fund includes a low-interest loan — a program-related investment (PRI) — that SED will use to provide nonprofit and small, for-profit developers with affordable loans. Those loans will in turn help finance the construction or adaptation of vacant and neglected buildings in neighborhoods across the city for new, mixed-income housing. SED is responsible for repaying this PRI. The grant portion of Knight Foundation’s investment will also help strengthen SED’s balance sheet through a net asset grant and a cash loan guarantee as well as provide tax credit and project management consulting for developers and small business owners.
“Knight Foundation is proud to partner with Ford Foundation and ShoreBank to be part of such a transformational investment in the city’s future,” said Brenda Price, Knight Foundation’s program director for Detroit.
Ford Foundation’s $8 million in funding provides SED with a similar combination of grants ($3 million) and PRIs ($5 million). A portion of both investments will be used by SED to bolster its staff for real-estate and small-business lending as well as workforce development. The grants from both foundations will also allow SED to enhance business assistance programs, including marketing and outreach to developers and investors.
Another Knight grant of $1 million will help Focus: HOPE, a long-time civil rights organization, expand its educational programs for the city’s workforce to meet employers’ demands for new job skills in the 21st century. Knight’s grant helps Focus: HOPE provide tuition assistance to low-income residents for reading, math and communications classes geared to preparing them for training in higher-skilled jobs. The grant is designed to increase the pool of workers qualified for the growing fields of health and technology.
And to underscore Knight’s commitment to the massive new Far East Side Development Project, under the leadership of former HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, the foundation has made a $250,000 grant. The recipient is U Snap Bac, an experienced community development corporation, which will use the funds to repair up to 200 houses in the east side over four years. The grant matches funding from the city and allows the project to move forward.
Another Knight investment of $250,000 to Intel will help the city develop a strategy for providing wireless access to the Internet throughout Detroit, joining more than 500 communities across the country actively seeking ways to bring Internet access equitably to all neighborhoods. Intel will help the city develop its policies for working with prospective wireless vendors and providers in the Detroit initiative.
Price said the new grants build on Knight Foundation’s investments over the past five years in community development in Detroit neighborhoods, including the riverfront redevelopment.
“All of these investments help move the community forward,” said Price.
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities including Detroit. Since its founding, Knight Foundation has made 564 grants for more than $82 million in Detroit and Southeast Michigan.