DETROIT, Mich. – The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, a national funder with a 35-year history of local grant making, will invest $24.3 million over the next five years to increase community development in six selected Detroit neighborhoods and to increase access and diversity in arts organizations in southeast Michigan.

The initial investments in those two locally recommended priorities have been approved by Knight Foundation’s board of trustees through Community Partners Program grants to 17 local nonprofits (complete list attached). The committee works in concert with David F. Smydra Sr., the foundation’s Detroit-based community liaison program officer.

“We hope these grant awards will make a statement about our commitment to strengthening neighborhoods and expanding the reach of arts and cultural experiences at a time when resources are limited,” said Smydra. “As a relatively small funder in the philanthropic context of southeast Michigan, our committee felt strongly that for Knight to succeed, our investments must encourage collaborative approaches that complement and leverage existing efforts to fit into the community’s broader agenda.” 

Knight is working to increase the effectiveness of community development corporations and community-based organizations in six neighborhoods: Southwest Detroit; Focus: Hope; 7 Mile/Woodward; the Woodward Corridor/East Grand Boulevard; East Riverfront; and Northeast – East Warren/Alter – Mack. (A PDF map of the neighborhoods can be downloaded from “detroit.knightfdn.org” and click on “news.”)

Smydra said these neighborhoods were selected in large part because they allow Knight Foundation to tap into a series of current initiatives that cut across both funders and organizations. In addition, each neighborhood has its own locally driven consensus on the mix of economic, social, community and cultural components that is moving its agenda forward. By supporting key programs in each neighborhood, Knight Foundation hopes it can help the broader neighborhood initiative “tip” from potential to reality.

All six of the Knight neighborhoods received grant awards. Highlights of the community development grants include:

• A $700,000 grant to the Mexicantown Community Development Corp. to expand the business incubator program as part of the new Mexicantown International Welcome Center, Mercado and Public Plaza.
• An $800,000 grant to the Arab American and Chaldean Council to help purchase, renovate, equip and operate a Youth Leadership Training and Recreation Center as part of a comprehensive community development initiative serving the 7 Mile/Woodward neighborhood.

Other neighborhood organizations receiving funding in the community development effort include: Vanguard Community Development Corp. ($231,235); Detroit 300 Conservancy ($100,000); Detroit Community Initiative ($154,600); Focus: HOPE ($250,000); Neighborhood Centers Inc. ($150,000); People’s Community Services of Metropolitan Detroit ($200,000); Southwest Detroit Business Association ($200,000); and University Cultural Center Association ($250,000).

As its second priority, Detroit’s Community Advisory Committee chose to focus investments in partnerships that increase access and diversity among the arts and cultural organizations serving Wayne, Oakland, Macomb and Washtenaw counties.

“This recognizes that while there is a great diversity of cultures and people that comprise southeast Michigan, they are not proportionately reflected in either the program offerings or the attendance patterns for local arts and cultural organizations, particularly in terms of those serving the African-American, Arabic-Chaldean and Latino populations,” said Geneva J. Williams, president and CEO of City Connect-Detroit and the incoming chair of the Knight advisory committee.

Detroit is the largest African-American majority city in the United States and its cultural and historical traditions are deeply embedded in the more than 300-year history of the city and region. As committee member Steven K. Hamp, president of The Henry Ford, said: “Detroit should own African-American culture.”

Lead grants in the arts access initiative include:

• $700,000 to the Arts League of Michigan to provide program support and limited capital support during the construction and implementation of the Arts League’s new Cultural Arts Center.
• $400,000 to the Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts to relocate and expand the annual Detroit Jazz and Musical Festival, increase audience and participant diversity and create economic impact in downtown Detroit.
• An $800,000 grant to Mosaic Youth Center Theater of Detroit for programming and leasing its new performance space.

Other arts access grant recipients include the Detroit Symphony Orchestra ($250,000) and Sphinx Organization ($250,000). 

In addition, the committee recommended discretionary grants to the Arab American and Chaldean Council of $125,000 to expand its H.E.L.P. Program and the Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services ($125,000 to support community-based organizations).

While Knight Foundation has served as a local funder in Detroit since its founding in 1950, its board has adopted a new mission in Detroit and the other 25 Knight communities to focus tightly on locally identified priorities. The foundation is directing more grant dollars over a longer period of time to nonprofit partners addressing needs and opportunities recommended by the local committees.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities.  Since 1950, Knight Foundation has invested more than $57.7 million in the greater Detroit community.