Neighborhoods step up to take the next Detroit beyond bankruptcy

RISING
TOGETHER
A PUBLICATION OF THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION
Neighborhoods
step up to take
the next Detroit
beyond
bankruptcy
and blight
THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION
Table of Contents
works to improve meaningful
graduation rates in Detroit, so
kids are ready for college,
career, and life.
Message from Tonya Allen
REPORT: THE NEXT DETROIT
4.
8.
10.
12.
14.
16.
18.
The Next Detroit: How one neighborhood
is ready to excel in post-bankruptcy Detroit
Chart: Graduation rates for Skillman-targeted
neighborhoods are on the rise
Building a better Detroit through
youth engagement
Not in it alone: A look at NEIdeas and
other funders’ initiatives making a difference
Our Detroit infographic: a look at the two
Detroits
Interview with Alex B. Hill on racial
disparities in revitalization efforts
Crafting the Next Detroit: Youth essays,
poems, and art
PROGRAM AREAS
About the cover: Aarion Vinson, 7, Tarriel Cannon, 15,
and TaNeeyah Edwards, 13, dance in a field in Brightmoor. All three are members of the award-winning
D.A.N.C.E. team that practices in the nearby Brightmoor
Community Center. This field was once so overgrown
and covered in blight, the girls never would have been
able to walk across it, much less dance across it. Now,
after funding from Skillman and other partners, 67
blocks in Brightmoor, including this field, are free of
overgrowth and blight. Hundreds of dumped tires, more
than a dozen boats and even a dead body were among
the 20,000 tons of nonstructural blight removed.
Children in the neighborhood can now walk to Brightmoor Community Center without having to pass by that
field and worry about what might be lurking in the tall
grasses — and that’s progress worth dancing about.
Top: Life Remodeled cleanup on 10000 block
of Mettetal St. in the Cody Rouge neighborhood.
Middle: Nyasia Valdez, center, is a Southwest
Detroit youth making a difference. Page 10.
Bottom: Chase Walker stands next to his work,
Laugh Lines, at The Skillman Foundation’s
headquarters
24: Community Leadership
26: Education
28. Safety
30: Youth Development
32: Social Innovation
34: Neighborhoods map
36. Know our target neighborhoods
UPDATES
38: Foundation news
42: Grants summary
43: Financials
44: How to apply for a grant
45: History
46: Staff list
THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION 1
MESSAGE FROM
TONYA ALLEN
Shawn Lee
Time for Our Detroit to come together
to move graduation rate to 90 percent
A arion Vinson graces our cover this year
in her black leotard. She’s 7 years old, and
dances nearly every day at the Brightmoor
Community Center through an excellent
youth development program called
D.A.N.C.E.
Aarion loves to dance. She says that
dancing makes her feel happy, makes her
forget her problems.
Like too many children in Detroit,
the problems in Aarion’s life are real. She
has lost two siblings to tragic deaths. She
sometimes hears gunshots in her neighborhood. And in the last year, her father,
Aaron Vinson, was shot five times trying
to break up a fight. He survived, but scars
remain, under his bandages and on his
daughters, who talk fearfully about how it
happened. It’s the kind of knowledge no
7-year-old should have.
When you ask Aarion what she
dreams for Detroit, she describes a carnival.
But in her next breath, she speaks beyond
her years, saying she hopes for more jobs
and safer streets.
I want Aarion to feel safe in her
neighborhood. I want her to feel like she
has great education options right in her
Tonya Allen
2 THE SKILLMAN
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together will make Detroit work for
neighborhood as well as across the
kids in our neighborhoods – comcity. I want her to feel happy and
munity leadership, education, youth
carefree all the time, not just when
development, and safety. We also
she’s dancing.
introduced a new set of tools, which
Aarion was just a baby when
we call Social Innovation (page 32),
the Foundation began a $100-million
to tackle those programs in new
initiative to transform six neighborways.
hoods in Detroit. Since then, real
I’m pleased to announce that
changes and improvements have
in 2014, we added two targets to that
indeed happened in her neighborgoal. By the 2016–2017 senior class,
hood of Brightmoor, along with
our goal is to get graduation rates in
others.
the six neighborhoods where we
In the Skillman Good Neighwork (see page 34 for an illustrated
borhoods, residents, nonprofits,
Aarion Vinson, 7, poses on Butler St.
map) to 90 percent. By the 2020
school leaders, police, government
in the Brightmoor neighborhood, where
blocks have been cleaned of blight.
graduating class, we are committed
officials, and the philanthropic
to reaching that mark citywide.
community have come together on a
We will not come by these targets easily, but we
shared agenda for children. In places like Cody Rouge
are undeterred by the challenge. In the past two years,
(which you can read more about on page 4), transforthe City of Detroit moved through remarkable change.
mation means cleaner streets, improving schools,
Unlikely allies came together through the bankruptcy
growing networks of youth opportunities, and more
process — state officials, unions, pensioners, banks,
community leaders. In Osborn (which you can read
about on page 28), residents are reporting an increased debtors, judges, lawyers, art lovers, funders, and more
— and found a way to a solution. I heard someone
sense of safety thanks to community efforts to clean
recently refer to this as a new shared memory for
up blight and share crime data. In Southwest Detroit
Detroiters, a shared memory of doing something very
(which you can read about on page 10), youth are
difficult together. And it is one shared by ALL Detroimaking their voices heard and taking part in ways
ters, whether you are new to the city or have lived here
big and small to make their neighborhood thrive.
for decades. Detroit’s future is an Our Detroit future
And across all six neighborhoods, graduation
(see infographic on page 14).
rates are improving (see chart on page 8). This is no
Now is the time to be ambitious, to make the
small feat. If you compare these six neighborhoods
impossible possible an integral part of the Detroit
to other neighborhoods in the city, you can see the
way. To turn that collective action and “Our Detroit”
impact we have had on our target, where we are
attitude to children in neighborhoods, to make them
working intentionally with so many others. It’s somesafe places, full of opportunities, where children are
thing we are proud of — and it’s something we are
educated and supported. Where 90 percent of children
doubling down on.
graduate. Where Aarion grows up, dancing carefree.
In 2013, we announced a mega goal to further
We can do it. I hope you’ll find a way to be a part
hone our work: to improve meaningful high school
graduation rates so kids are prepared for college, career of that next shared memory, as we truly rise together
to make this the Detroit children deserve.
and life. We realigned our funding areas to four interconnected program areas (starting on page 24) that
THE SKILLMAN
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THE Next Detroit
In Cody Rouge, a glimpse of what
the city can be post-bankruptcy
­— By Nichole Christian and Krista Jahnke
I
f Mayor Mike Duggan were to ask Kenyetta Campbell how to build a vibrant post-bankruptcy Detroit,
she would escort him to the new mosaic mural on
Elmira Street in the Cody Rouge neighborhood.
The mural, made of jagged cuts of found
porcelain and glass, was quietly dedicated in September. It stands bolted to two wooden posts, behind
a fence just in front of Horace Mann Elementary
School. It does not tower. Its colors, subtle hues
of blue, green, and yellow, do not scream.
In fact, to see what Campbell sees, you must
fix your eyes beyond the maze of shapes, past
the ring of smiling faces, up to the very top of
the mural. The two words found there, she says,
provide the best possible blueprint for Detroit’s
future as it moves beyond bankruptcy: Children
First.
The mural is one of thousands of projects
and investments that have grown out of the
Skillman Foundation’s work in six Detroit neighborhoods, of which Cody Rouge is one.
Campbell, the executive director of the
Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance and a
lifelong resident of the neighborhood, says that
as investment and development momentum in
the city have mostly fixated on adult issues and the
Ary’ Anna and Alanna Cloyd smile after the Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance board candidate debates in 2013 at Don Bosco Hall.
greater downtown area, she has witnessed Skillman
give life to the mural’s mantra in each of its six
target neighborhoods (see map on pages 34–35).
Investments in the Cody Rouge neighborhood, in particular, she says, prove that everyone
in Detroit benefits when children come first.
“Seven years ago, when we started this
work, people didn’t know whether to stay or to
go,’’ Campbell says. “Now, there is a real sense of
neighborhood pride growing because people can
see systems going into place. There are safe school
routes, cleaner streets, physical things that show
Skillman isn’t playing when it says it wants this
neighborhood to be a good place for children to
grow and feel safe. We’re a model that can work
for all of Detroit.’’
Tale of two Detroits
Wilbert Riser, Lester Jordan, and Chris Gilliam, adults in back, celebrate the unveiling of Jordan’s mosaic mural project along with youth artists in
October 2014 at Mann Learning Community.
4 THE SKILLMAN
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Open a newspaper or turn on the evening news
and chances are you will hear two narratives about
Detroit: one about excitement growing downtown,
newcomers arriving, and development happening;
the other on decay and bankruptcy, blight and danger,
showcasing a city on its knees. Typically, this bleaker
narrative focuses on the neighborhoods.
The people in the first Detroit are labeled New
Detroiters. They’re portrayed as young, mostly white,
privileged, educated, innovative, and connected. The
people in the second Detroit are longtime residents,
labeled Old Detroit or Legacy Detroit. They’re
portrayed as mostly older, African-American, low-income, and disenfranchised.
The truth is messier and more nuanced. Neither
are monolithic. Neither should be labelled good or
bad. There are real positive changes happening both
downtown and in neighborhoods, there is real work
that still needs to happen, and there are real tensions
arising.
There are unanswered questions, too. How do
we stop being two Detroits and become one Detroit?
How does Detroit’s comeback post-bankruptcy
include everyone? Where do children fit in?
And maybe most important of all, can one
united, stronger Detroit emerge — one that works
for people of all income brackets and races, and one
THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION 5
Skillman Foundation President and
CEO Tonya Allen & Board Chair
Lizabeth Ardisana help clean the
10000 block of Mettetal St. during Life
Remodeled’s Cody Rouge project.
that especially works for the
children and families who
have suffered through the
city’s malaise?
Why does this moment
carry so much weight? It’s the
convergence of many factors
that make it so potent with
possibility, from a continued
and growing stream of
investment into the city, to
population shifts, political climate changes, and those
renewed tensions over race and class.
“As a life-long Detroiter, I can’t recall a time
when so many things in the city were changing,” said
Lizabeth Ardisana, Skillman Foundation Board Chair.
“This is really a special moment when the city has a
chance to redefine itself.”
Detroit entered bankruptcy in September 2013
and emerged from it in late 2014. In November 2013,
the city voters elected Mike Duggan. His approval
ratings have been remarkably high, as he spent his first
year making headway on a variety of hot-button issues
– streetlights, busing, and blight. The downtown and
Midtown areas of the city have continued to see major
investment and are now bustling with new businesses
opening, rents rising, and newcomers arriving. The
names Dan Gilbert and Sue Mosey are household
names throughout the region.
In the neighborhoods where Skillman works,
the reactions to the swiftly changing environment
in the city have been a mix of incredulity and hope,
said Quincy Jones, executive director of the Osborn
Neighborhood Alliance, a resident-led organization
6 THE SKILLMAN
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working to improve the Osborn
neighborhood for children.
“At first with the bankruptcy, you didn’t know where
it was going to go,” Jones said.
“We were all on pins and
needles. But soon at the
community level in Osborn,
you saw things moving. Homes
were being torn down that had
been sitting there for a number of years. Parks that
(the residents) took care of fully, the pocket parks, the
grass was being cut (by the city). At a community level,
you appreciate the city being proactive.”
Other changes have made a real impact in the
neighborhoods. For the first time, Detroit voters
elected a City Council by district in 2013, instead
of using all at-large seats. This meant neighborhoods
finally had an elected official directly responsible
for serving the needs of their residents and children.
The city also reorganized within the mayor’s
office, with Duggan assigning managers to each
neighborhood, representatives who would be onthe-ground in the neighborhoods talking to residents
and hearing about their concerns.
That was a major shift.
“At one point, you felt as if you were out there by
yourself,” Jones said. “With the new administration and
with the district managers in the community, it makes
you feel very connected.”
With all those positive changes, Jones said, it is
time to alter the Two Detroits narrative. It’s time to
see that neighborhoods are part of Detroit, that two
Detroits are not sustainable. It’s time to insist that the
future Detroit must be an Our Detroit, one that works
for all. And a narrative that reinforces the truth —
­ that
neighborhoods are, in many ways, already working and
are ready for more investment.
“One of the best things Skillman has ever done is
the Good Neighborhoods Initiative,” Jones said, “because
these neighborhoods are now organized and becoming
the landing spot for other community development
investment. We need to make sure everyone realizes
that and sees these areas that have emerged because
of Skillman GNI.”
Says Angelina Palacios, a 17-year-old from Southwest Detroit, “If you asked me before I got involved
with the Congress of Communities,” the neighborhood
resident-led organization working for kids in that neighborhood, “I would have been like, ‘Oh no, this place is
going to be terrible. It’s going to be burned down and
all the Mexicans living here will be gone away to the
suburbs.’ But I hadn’t realized how many initiatives
are happening in Southwest. People are actually trying.
And that pushes me to try.
“I believe, in five years, with the right amount of
money, with the right amount of patience and people
coming together, we can be beautiful again,” she said.
“We are beautiful now, but we can be beautiful to everyone else… We’re proud to say this is where we live.”
Onward and upward
In Cody Rouge, signs of that progress are everywhere,
giving a glimpse of a future neighborhood that’s even
more hospitable to children and families than it is now.
At least three formerly vacant school buildings are
now occupied. Campbell’s office has also partnered with
smaller nonprofits to create community center hubs similar
to what is offered at Don Bosco Hall. The efforts are part
of what Campbell calls Cody Rouge’s ERA plan: Engage,
Retain and Attract.
“I’ve lived or worked in this neighborhood since
1975,” says the Rev. Lester Jordan, pastor of New Greater
Bethlehem Temple, “but I don’t think I’ve ever been more
proud.’’
Through support from Skillman, the church’s after-school program, Weaver Arts Academy, worked with 25
neighborhood youth to design and install the Children First
mural on Elmira Street. “You’ve got the groundwork for a
good future here.’’
That’s a common refrain. At a community meeting in
September, more than 300 Cody Rouge residents gathered
to hear updates on the neighborhood’s progress, and when
asked whether they think the neighborhood will be a better
place to raise children in five years, 67 percent answered
in the positive, saying they think it will be either somewhat
Cody High junior and wide receiver Dialeta Payne
runs onto the school’s newly remodeled football field
before the first home game of the season.
THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION 7
4-Year Cohort Graduation Rate
or much better.
in other areas,
When Jimmie
Knight says some
Knight moved back
of the fear has also
to the neighborreceded.
hood seven years
“A lot of
ago, he doubted
prayers are being
he’d ever hear the
answered over here,”
word “good” used
Knight said. “You
again to describe
got people coming
Cody Rouge. He
out again; neighbors
bought a house a
watching like they
few doors down
used to.’’
from his ailing
Neighborhood
mother and soon
patrols have also
discovered that she,
stepped up their
along with other
game, ensuring more
Cody’s Assistant Football Coach Jimmie Knight
also mentors students, such as Anthony Martin, left.
seniors, was
kids feel safe walking
learning to live with someto and from school. Brothers
thing more than illness.
on Patrol, a resident-led safety
“The old people were afraid,’’ said Knight, who
unit, has increased its patrols and recorded a 40 percent
is an assistant coach for the Cody High School varsity
drop in incidents between 2011 and 2012.
football team. “They wouldn’t even come out to sit on
At Don Bosco Hall, the increase in opportunities
the porch like they used to. I’m talking about people
for youth to find quality after-school programming is
easy to spot —
­ youth-created murals cover the walls, a
who’ve lived here 40 and 50 years afraid in their own
huge Ferris wheel constructed in a robotics class rises
neighborhood.”
nearly to the ceiling, and kids pop between classrooms
Blight is one big cause of fear, and while all
featuring a variety of enrichment programs. In 2010
neighborhoods struggle to ease the spread of it, Cody
in Cody Rouge, there was a comprehensive range of
Rouge has been hit particularly hard since the Foundation’s neighborhood work began in 2006. Between 2009 high-quality youth activities for 45 percent of youth,
and in 2012 there was a comprehensive range of
and 2014, the neighborhood saw a 255 percent rise in
high-quality youth activities for 56 percent of youth.
the number of blighted properties.
“I think Don Bosco is very important, especially
As organizations, many with Skillman support,
for youth and kids,” said high school senior Ashley
have worked to clean up the blocks around the Cody
Studstill, a member of the Cody Rouge Community
High School campus and to spur blight improvements
Action Alliance Youth Council.
“It’s somewhere you can go and
feel important. They teach you
90%
Since 2007, schools in the 85%
a lot of different things here
— art, music, business classes,
six Skillman-supported
80%
+7%
poetry. And it’s all in one
75%
neighborhoods
building where you can come
70%
have seen graduation
and learn for free.”
+14%
65%
Signs of change in the
rates improve faster
60%
neighborhood are nowhere
than in schools in the
55%
more dramatic than in the halls
rest of Detroit.
50%
of Cody’s three small high
2007200820092010 20112012 2013
schools and out on the school’s
brand-new 90,000-square-foot
8 THE SKILLMAN
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football field. The school’s team, the Comets, had gone
without a home field for eight years. While vandalism
and turf decay destroyed the previous field, Campbell
and Knight credit broad community partnerships for
providing the new $650,000 field.
Life Remodeled mobilized thousands of volunteers, with a Skillman investment of $200,000, to
spend one week in August doing a massive cleanup
in the Cody Rouge neighborhood and its schools.
To Knight, whose twin daughters attend the
school, his players’ results in the classroom best tell
the story of the neighborhood’s transformation.
can be a part of what’s happening to bring this community back.’’
Like Knight, Campbell is another Cody Rouge
native who came home after college to help revitalize
her neighborhood, where more than 13,000 children
live.
“When I was growing up,” she said, “this was a
great community. Housing stock was full. You could
walk to school; it felt good to be a kid here.”
Now, she said, that feeling is returning. As change
swirls through the city, residents in neighborhoods like
Campbell’s are taking action to ensure they don’t miss
Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance Executive Director Kenyetta Campbell, center,
poses with the Cody High football team at the groundbreaking of its new playing field.
When the current coaching staff took over seven
years ago, it was inundated with reports of poor grades
and gang activity. Today, 94 percent of the players
graduate on time, he said. Sixty-three percent receive
college scholarships from Division 2 and Division 3
schools.
“Being a coach and working in (Medicine and
Community Health Academy) at Cody, I see the
attitudes changing,’’ Knight said. “I see it with the
players and with parents like myself. I won’t lie; before
I didn’t want my daughters going to Cody. I didn’t think
it was safe enough. But I’m glad they’re here, and they
out on the momentum, a momentum that is gaining
urgency and, hopefully, leading to a more unified
Detroit — an Our Detroit — that works for kids.
“We’re on a mission to change the conversation
that children have,” Campbell said. “Everything we
do is about giving citizens resources to be part of a
safer, better community. At the end of the day, when
you make neighborhoods better for children, you
make the whole city better for everyone.’’
­ Nichole Christian is a metro Detroit-based freelance writer.
—
Krista Jahnke is a Skillman Foundation senior communications
officer.
THE SKILLMAN
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Nyasia Valdez, a Southwest Detroit resident, is pictured at TAP (The Alley Project), where she is social media and program manager. Her responsibility
includes maintaining a creative and welcoming environment for neighborhood residents and visitors.
Building a Better Detroit
Through Youth Engagement
“We have more kids
involved now than we’ve ever
had,” Salinas says. “Kids want to
go through the process of being
selected for the youth council
because they see the opportunities, a chance to learn about
leadership, a whole year of
activities and going beyond
Southwest Detroit.’’
Salinas says she hopes the
Duggan administration will work
more closely with the Congress
of Communities and other
groups to create more resources
for the estimated 18,000 youth who call Southwest
Detroit home. “Since Skillman started with the Good
Neighborhoods Initiative, a lot has changed. But in
the safe spaces that we’ve set up to hear from youth,
they still tell us there’s not enough things to do after
school,” Salinas says. “There’s no skating rink, no
bowling alley, and not enough jobs.’’
The next Detroit, Salinas says, must deliver more
opportunities to youth. “It’s not
enough that adults are coming to
us feeling more hopeful. The youth
have to feel there’s a future, too.’’
Valdez, for one, is preparing
to help lead the way. Currently,
she’s taking classes at Henry Ford
Community College, but she
intends to enroll at the University
of Detroit Mercy to pursue a
master’s degree in community
development.
“Through Congress of
Communities, I’ve seen how
important it is for people who
don’t usually get a seat at the table to feel like they
can be involved,’’ she says. “Hopefully, when I’m done,
I can inspire a few young people to find a passion in
the community the way that I’ve found mine. We have
to keep it going for the next generation.’’
­— Nichole Christian is a metro Detroit-based freelance writer.
Lisa Luevenos
Lisa Luevenos
“Through Congress
of Communities, I’ve
seen how important
it is for people who
don’t usually get a
seat at the table to
feel like they can
be involved.’’
­— By Nichole Christian
T
hree years ago, Nyasia Valdez was a typical teenager
just “hanging out with the people on my block.’’
Today, the 19-year-old keeps a calendar nearly
as busy as a person twice her age. By choice, and with
support from caring adults in her community, she has
become one of Southwest Detroit’s brightest young
leaders.
Through volunteer work with One Michigan,
Young Nation, Detroit Future City and the Congress
of Communities Youth Council Valdez is routinely out
raising awareness and promoting citizen involvement
on issues such as immigration reform, neighborhood
safety and cleanup campaigns, and peer counseling. Her
passion for community organizing began as a member
of the youth council and it’s led to an array of unexpected opportuni­ties including a 20-hour-a-week job
10 THE SKILLMAN
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as manager of The Alley Project, Southwest Detroit’s
award-winning outdoor art installation.
“It’s crazy when I think about all of the things
I’ve been able to get involved with in the community
because of Skillman supporting the youth council and
being in Southwest Detroit,’’ she says. “When you go
to the meetings and you hear the conversations and
you see everything that’s going on, it’s kind of a push
to do something. It’s real motivating.’’
Maria Salinas, executive director of Congress of
Communities, points to increased engagement among
youth like Valdez as a key indicator that Skillman’s
investments are transforming life in Southwest Detroit.
In fact, Valdez was instrumental in getting her mother
involved. Together, they now serve as Congress of
Communities board members.
Valdez poses with neighborhood and community youth, who are encouraged to participate in programs and projects at TAP.
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Not in it alone
How another funder’s work amplifies our own
A quick chat with David Egner, president and CEO
of the Hudson-Webber Foundation, and Jim Boyle,
senior program officer at New Economy Initiative,
about NEIdeas. NEIdeas is a program of NEI, of
which The Skillman Foundation was an early investor.
What is NEideas?
JB: NEIdeas is a challenge to existing small
businesses in the cities of Detroit, Hamtramck,
and Highland Park and asks one simple question: “What are your best ideas for growth?”
Though the challenge, we are giving away a half
a million dollars to the best ideas for businesses
that are three years or older. On the backside, it
is really a strategy to connect a more diverse
and broader audience to the resources that NEI
has been funding over the past several years.
Anything surprising or noteworthy about
the applications you’ve received?
DE: Our outreach was extensive and multilingual – including door hangers, ethnic publications, community meetings and even popping
into local businesses like barber shops. As a
result, we were pleased to see the geographic
distribution reflected the representation we
were hoping for. For example, of our first 30
winners, 4 were over 50 years of age. One
would think older business owners might have
an engrained way of doing business, but not so
with our applicants.
JB: Also, about 73 percent were minority-owned, and about 60 percent were owned
by women.
Can you talk about the neighborhood
component of your work?
DE: I have to start by saying that with this
work, it is important for us to remember that
committed neighborhood members have been
anchoring their communities for years. We
12 THE SKILLMAN
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really want these people in the neighborhood
to see themselves in this ecosystem. The contest
was a great way to create a disruption, and through
our awards, we have learned the importance of
recognizing existing business so that they can say
“I’m here and I matter.” Several people have
approached me after the awards to tell me that
they came away with a list of long-standing local
businesses that they planned to support in the
future.
I think Skillman’s work in the last few years
has really made a lot of this possible. It’s the trust
building, the increased capacity, and the way they’ve
been able to change the dialogue. We are grateful
for the opportunity to build on that work and help
layer in the for-profit side.
How has your thinking evolved over time?
DE: NEI really had to start with a focus on the
technical assistance providers because the system
of support was so fragmented and was not really
servicing entrepreneurs in an efficient or effective
manner. Once we started seeing progress and
improved service, we were able to shift our attention. There was a misconception that we were
focusing exclusively on start-ups and were not
paying attention to businesses that had been up.
We want to culturally shift the focuses to all
businesses and not just start-ups.
JB: In reality, we’ve been supporting neighborhood
work for years, but we wanted, really wanted, to
ramp up the pipeline for the underserved communities for these services now that the ecosystem is
built up and working more as a network. It was
about adding more emphasis over time to this
component.
DE: Now our challenge is to start doing a better
job of telling our story in a way that connect the
grassroots to high-growth companies. We are
working to help people to understand why all
businesses in the city matter.
Beyond Skillman
Our work in Detroit neighborhoods in support
of kids is buoyed and made stronger by the work
of other like-minded funders. Here are four:
The Kresge Foundation: One of the biggest
Foundations in the world is right in Detroit’s
backyard. The Kresge Foundation has always
called Metro Detroit home and continues to
make an enormous impact on the city, including
in late 2014 an announcement of $20 million to
support early childhood education in Detroit.
W. K. Kellogg Foundation’s
Community Leadership Network:
The WKKF Community Leadership Network
Fellowship targets individuals who can be
transformative social change agents in their
communities so that vulnerable children and
their families can achieve optimal health and
well-being, academic achievement, and financial
security.
Knight Arts Challenge Detroit: This is a
$9-million initiative to draw the best and most
innovative ideas out of local organizations and
individuals seeking to engage and enrich the
community through the arts.
Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation:
The mission of the Max M. & Marjorie S. Fisher
Foundation is to enrich humanity by strengthening and empowering children and families in
need. The Foundation invests heavily in the
Brightmoor community.
Top: Adriana Rivera, 8, Esperanza Berres, 8, Jessica Rivera, 6,
and Ahtziri Escoto, 7, make a watercolor about fire safety with
Anne Latarte (not pictured) of Lighthouse Academy at Chadsey
Condon Community Organization’s annual meeting in 2013.
Middle: Jose Flores, 11, and Fabian Rodriguez, 10, battle for the
ball during team Arsenal’s practice session at Clark Park. Clark
Park’s summer program includes gardening, nutrition, art, writing,
computer skills as well as sports.
Bottom: Muna Ferhoud, 10, calls out to a friend at the animal
exhibit at Cody Rouge’s Family Fun Day outside Don Bosco Hall.
THE SKILLMAN
13
FOUNDATION 13
14 THE SKILLMAN
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THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION 15
n October 2014, a provocative headline caused a
stir in Detroit media. It read: “Detroit revitalization:
Black problems, white solutions.”
What followed was data that Wayne State graduate student Alex Hill compiled through months of
research that showed that the dollars direct to efforts
to revitalize Detroit seem to disproportionately be
given to or managed by white people. Of the programs
he studied, which included media-based programs,
fellowship programs, and entrepreneur programs
among others, just under 70 percent of people who led
or were directly supported by the programs were white.
“Detroit’s recovery, while exciting, is also deeply unequal.
A good indicator of the racial inequality can be seen in who
gets accepted to incubators, who is selected for fellowships,
and who is running the various programs and organizations
working to revitalize Detroit.
Inequality is rising in America’s cities and the effects of
gentrification are disproportionately found in minority communities. In Detroit, this is often talked about as two Detroits.
In the 2010 Census, Detroit had a population of 713,777
people of which a majority 82.7 percent were black or AfricanAmerican. These numbers are not reflected in Detroit’s
revitalization efforts.” — Alex B. Hill
White
Black
Asian
Latino
Arab
Who Gets
Support
in Detroit
Revitalization
Leaders
White
Black
Asian
Latino
Arab
CRAWFORD: What did you hope to do with the
data you collected about investments in Detroit’s
revitalization?
HILL: I think the follow-up for outcomes is difficult
because obviously I’m one person and I can’t drive this
discussion. But also this isn’t a discussion that I started.
The data I collected was largely based on conversations
I was having with families in Detroit, different community organizations across the city where they were
seeing these things. They’d say, you know, the white
people run the nonprofits and we don’t have a nonprofit so they don’t want to fund our community group
and the things that we’re trying to do. But they said,
there is no other community group where we are, so
if anything is going to happen here, we have to make
it happen.
CRAWFORD: I read that you worked with families in
Detroit for a few years. Can you tell me about that and
how it influenced your thinking about these issues?
91 Fellows,
Challenge Detroit
50 Fellows,
Detroit Revitalization
Fellows
26 Executives,
Detroit-focused
Foundations
Ideas
Racial
Breakdown
of Detroit
Residents
Just 24 percent were African-American. The data is not
perfect — Hill did not interview the organizations
directly to get the cleanest data possible. Still, what
he reported contributed to the growing conversation
about inclusivity in Detroit’s comeback story. In a city
that is more than 80 percent African-American, Hill
said he thought this seemed rather important to unpack
and understand.
Hill sat down to discuss his findings with Gionni
Crawford, a young Detroiter who is an aspiring journalist. Here’s a portion of their conversation.
174 Featured
Innovators, Urban
Innovation Exchange
107 Speakers,
TEDxDetroit
63 Administrators,
Detroit-based
Universities
75 Creative Venture
Members, Detroit
Creative Corridor
Center
400 Graduates,
D:hive BUILD
Program
Startups
I
Who is benefiting in
revitalization efforts?
195 Start-up Employees,.
Detroit Venture
Partners
HILL: I was working as a community health worker
for a childhood obesity study. It was home-based, so
we went two times a week and met with families and
talked to them about skills. It was very eye-opening
work and definitely gave me a good perspective on how
Detroit families were dealing with all the changes that
were happening in Detroit.
CRAWFORD: Sometimes you hear people say (black
people) just don’t work hard enough. Did that concept
come up as you were doing this research?
HILL: Yes. That was a lot of the response I got. That,
well, there just aren’t enough black Detroiters who are
qualified. I think that only really highlights the problem
further. You can go back and look at the racial discrimination school funding policies and how that has
affected things.
issues. I think it’s important to note that in my piece
I use the word deliberate. I don’t necessarily think
people are being deliberately excluded, but I do think
people are being deliberately included. And who is
being included and why? The other side of that is that,
well, exclusion is happening. I know a lot of programs
need to think about if they are inadvertently excluding
people who would really add value to their goal or their
mission, which for many is about revitalizing Detroit,
making Detroit better. So if people aren’t qualified,
then maybe we need different programs.
CRAWFORD: So start all over?
HILL: No, I don’t think so. But one fellowship model
I’ve seen overseas in global health places a fellow from
a Western country with an in-country fellow, someone
who is geographically specific to the area. That’s one
idea… Having someone who is geographically specific
to Detroit who has been in Detroit and experienced it
would be a really great way to make sure you have an
even class of people that you’re bringing into your
program.
CRAWFORD: What should be the goal? Is it to be
equal? Or more inclusive?
HILL: That’s something that a lot of people have
talked about – if we’re just racing toward equality,
then everyone gets the same thing. That’s not what I’m
talking about. I’m talking about racial equity. Specifically, Detroit’s black population has been set behind.
They’re starting from a way different spot then say the
kid from the suburbs who is going to go work downtown. It’s already an unequal playing field. So we need
equity, not necessarily equality.
CRAWFORD: What do you think is the first step to
fixing this or at least starting the conversation?
HILL: That’s really difficult because there are so many
Alex B. Hill
Gionni Crawford
Sources: View the data at
http://detroitdata.org/dataset/race-and-revitalization-in-detroit.
Last updated 10/25/14.
16 THE SKILLMAN
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THE SKILLMAN
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Crafting the next Detroit
We asked young Detroiters if they are optimistic about Detroit’s future and why. We asked them to submit
their answers in the form of an essay or poem. On pages 19, 20, and 23 you can read responses from young
Detroit writers. The artwork on these pages is produced by young Detroit artists through the College for
Creative Studies Neighborhood Arts Programs, a Foundation-supported project run by Mikel Bresee.
In November, the artists came to the Foundation’s downtown office for an awards program and
celebration. To see more of the artwork, visit our office at 100 Talon Centre, Suite 100, in Detroit.
Chase Walker poses next to his mixed media work, “Laugh Lines.”
Below: Two young artists stand in front of a group project
called “Quilting for Community,” made with mixed media
by students from Wayne Elementary.
I Believe in Detroit
By Nichole Degree
Denby High School
Yes, I believe there is a brighter future for Detroit, and it will be
a team effort. Hands working together. Brains collaborating. Justice
being served. Parents giving discipline. Kids appreciating education.
Teachers pushing for success. Leaders listening to the voices of residents. Police doing their job the right way. Most of all, Detroiters
treating each other with dignity and respect. Pastors spreading the word.
Churches opening the doors to anyone. Judges having a heart. Babies
getting the chance to grow up. Brothers coming together to encourage
one another. I will do my part to bring Detroit back, but I cannot do it
alone. Who is with me? In the next five years, I see a line of improvement starting with the outline and structures of neighborhoods. Clean
streets. Abandoned houses turned into homes. People will not be
standing on the corner selling drugs, but on the corner promoting the
next City Council meeting. Local liquor stores won’t be the hangout stop
— the local recreation center will be. It will not be perfect in the next
five years, but you will notice the change for greater is coming. Moreover, Detroit will be a more suitable city in which to live. In the next 10
years, we will be up and running like a GM or Chrysler car right off the
assembly line. The Motor City will be back up and ready to open up to
anyone who wants to visit. They will come and say WOW!
Below: Henry Ford Academy student Rachel Smith poses
with her family in front of her artwork titled “Portrait,”
also right, an oil pastel.
“Peace in Detroit” is a watercolor collage created
by Maya Page from Wayne Elementary.
18 THE SKILLMAN
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THE SKILLMAN
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Optimism Reigns
By Larnye Greene II
Henry Ford Academy: School for Creative Studies
When it comes to Detroit, there is not a better place to be. From the residential streets to the
downtown city, this is the place that feels like home. Some people may look at Detroit as a bad,
rundown city, but in reality, it is a very beautiful place. Each day, improvements are made to
better the lives of Detroiters. More resources are being added to entertain and benefit the
citizens. There is a lot in store for Detroit that people have yet to see. I am optimistic about
Detroit’s future.
A lot of times, people tend to look only at the big picture and not pay attention to the
small details. Detroit is a big project that many people are working on. So many things are being
done to turn Detroit into a better place. For instance, currently, the M-1 Rail Streetcar Project is
going on. The M-1 Rail Streetcar stretches 3.3 miles down Woodward in the downtown area.
This will be a benefit to those who use public transportation because there will soon be a new
way to get around town. Along with the streetcar project, Wayne State University, one of the
leading medical schools in the country, is adding a new stem cells research facility. Over the
summer, all kinds of camps and organizations are open. I went to a camp called Wayne State
University Math Corps. Not only did we learn math, but we learned how to form a bond with
younger students. We taught and mentored them as well to help bring out their greatness. The
Detroit RiverWalk is a place of interest and entertainment for Detroit citizens. On the RiverWalk, people are free to play volleyball, walk along the trail, enjoy concessions, relax in comfortable chairs while watching the water, and much more. New stadiums are being built as well for
our sports fans.
To further illustrate the point, 5 and 10 years from now, Detroit may be better than ever.
Abandoned homes are being torn down and new ones are being built. With the help of reconstruction, residential areas will begin to look more pleasing. In like manner, with all the new
technology we are getting, it may benefit us with certain tasks that may include computer work,
machinery, school-related concepts, etc. Additionally, our environment is getting better because
more companies are going green to reduce their carbon footprint. They are becoming
eco-friendly by recycling things in their workspace. New businesses and companies are being
produced as well. This means that more people will be able to get jobs and the unemployment
rate will decrease.
Anticipating the improvements in Detroit, it will be a better place for the next generation of young people. No one wants to live in an environment where they don’t feel safe. As
citizens of Detroit, it should be our responsibility to help make the city a safer place for the
youth. Kids shouldn’t be dying because they have been shot in a cross fire. They should be able
to play outside and not have to worry about losing their lives. I would like to see more change
than what is happening now all around Detroit. I am optimistic about Detroit’s future.
20 THE SKILLMAN
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“Metal Butterflies” is a group project made using metal
and spray paint created by artists from the Detroit
Neighborhood Arts Corp, including Dannah Wilson, who
is getting a hug from her mother, Dawn Wilson-Clark.
“Broken to be Rebuilt” is a
mosaic created by Alia Cummings,
a youth artist with the Detroit
Neighborhood Arts Workshops.
Youth artist Khareah Walker, 12, left,
Kajhana, 10, and grandmother Ms. Benjamin
pose next to Khareah’s work, “Graphic Art,”
created with markers.
THE SKILLMAN
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“Revealing the New World” is a mosaic created by
Ikalani Jahi, right, from Detroit Neighborhood Arts
Workshop.
Right: Ikalani Jahi stands next to her sister
Adiya Jahi’s mosaic “Old Night, New Day,”
which she created with the Detroit
Neighborhood Arts Workshops.
Detroit’s Future
By Da’Ja Smith Detroit Collegiate Prep
I call Detroit “D” town
Where people dream of singing a Berry Gordy Hitsville sound
Because Detroit future is a twinkling beautiful sight
We, the young adults, must prove ourselves with a good fight
The rich people are waiting on their opportunity to come back
And run the city that is a fact
But I am optimistic about Detroit’s future as one can see
That is why as a young Detroiter I’m going to work hard as I can be
I imagine this city in five to ten years
Where people no longer live with fears
Fears of the city siren sounds
All of this will be changed around
We, the young adult, are gaining our Detroit Constitutional Rights
Therefore, the future years of Detroit are shiny and bright
From the DIA with its inspirational art
To entertaining at Ford Field and Comerica Park
Let’s not forget the exclusive Wayne State College
And right around the corner Detroit Medical Center with all the best doctors and knowledge
As a young adult, I believe in the future of Detroit and our people
I believe that Detroit will continue to blossom like a spring flower with its sepal
“Downtown Lives” is a crayon and watercolor creation by
Wayne Elementary student Diamond Walker.
Deanna Craig shows off her graphite work, Mouth.
Left to right: Ikalani Jahi, Diamond Walker, Adiya Jahi, Megan Dombrowski, Rachel Smith, Khareah Walker, Corey Norman,
Alia Cummings, Tonya Allen, Jasmin Orozco, Naomi Cook, Dannah Wilson, Chase Walker
22 THE SKILLMAN
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Community Leadership
Growing change through
entrepreneurship in Brightmoor
­— By Krista Jahnke
The Brightmoor neigh-
is that much of those
borhood in Detroit has
dollars have supported
become known for its
efforts of neighborhood
growing network of
leaders to begin projects
community gardens
that ultimately become
and innovative ways of
self-sustaining businesses
fighting blight — both
with a social-impact model.
of which have received
There are many
media attention in recent
examples. Two of the
years.
biggest are the Brightmoor
Some say it should
Youth Garden and the
get more attention for
Brightmoor Woodworkers.
another growing achieveThrough the Brightment. It’s a place with a
moor
Youth Garden, led
Total grants in
spirit of innovative entrepreby Riet Schumack, young people
2012–2013,
neurship and a growing
learn gardening skills as well as
Community
network of change making
community building and
community leaders.
business basics. The youth
Leadership:
That’s the thread
decide what and how much
that Lisa Leverette sees
to plant, harvest, and sell at
Total grant
in Brightmoor. Leverette
farm stands and markets.
dollars paid in
is the force behind the
“The adult leaders
Community Connections
are there to teach the young
2012–2013,
Small Grants program, which
people
every aspect of the
Community
the Foundation started in 2007
work,” Leverette said. “They
Leadership:
and now is also supported by the
then allow the young people to do
W. K. Kellogg Foundation. The program
the work, thus giving them an investment
dolls out monthly awards, topping out at $5,000,
in the work. Their leadership is encouraged; the
to grassroots programs or individuals working in the
adults actually transfer the leadership of the project
six neighborhoods to improve outcomes for children.
to the youth.”
The initiative builds leadership in a number of
The Brightmoor Youth Garden was one of
ways: it gives grassroots leaders funding to take action;
the first small grants made through the Community
it gives young people more opportunities for leadership Connections program, and each grant to the Garden
development through programming; and it builds the
has funded projects that have become self-sustaining.
skills of the members of a resident panel who decide
For instance, in 2015, the Garden will open a new
each month where to award the grants.
Top: Brightmoor Youth Garden co-founder Riet Schumack holds a toddler
Since 2007, more than $2 million has been
at Brightmoor’s Harvest Fest in October.
awarded through the program.
Right: Takaira, 17, and Timarra, 12, man the Brightmoor Youth Garden
In Brightmoor, what’s unique, Leverette says,
40
$7
million
permanent farm stand on its site, and youth will operate
it through the growing season.
“Many of the other things these grants are funding
are around giving kids a one-time experience,” Leverette
said. “This is a garden not just for the sake of teaching
gardening, but with an eye toward harvesting and learning
entrepreneurship and sales, so kids could receive earnings
and approximate a summer job experience.”
Similarly, the Brightmoor Woodworkers are learning
to lead through hands-on business of woodworking. The
program is run by Bart Eddy out of Detroit Community
High School, and as Leverette puts it, the kids in the
program are “not necessarily your usual suspects, not
your star achievers. But they have a desire to work with
their hands.”
That they do, creating custom-order signs for the
gardens, small businesses, and block clubs across Brightmoor and running the business from order taking to design
to delivery. The program has expanded and is now one of
three under the umbrella of Entrepreneurship in Action,
which also operates a bike making enterprise and a T-shirt
enterprise. All funded through small grants.
Two graduates who participated in the bike program
in 2014 planned to apply in early 2015 for small grant funding of their own to create a bike repair education series for
kids in the neighborhood.
That shows what kind of leadership can emerge
when you believe in someone just a little bit, Leverette said.
“I’d estimate there are no less than 50 strong community leaders who have emerged from just the garden alone,”
Leverette said. “You can’t put a dollar behind a block club
captain established, behind blight gone, behind crime
decreased because now people now have the resources to
better their community... It is a force multiplier — when you believe in a grassroots leader, it leads them to believe
in themselves.”
Results-Based Leadership
In 2014, the Foundation began to use a set of tools
refined by the Annie E. Casey Foundation called
Results-Based Leadership. These tools help social
change organizations tackle complex issues by
infusing decision-making with data, by building
a culture of uncompromising accountability to
results, and by focusing actions around measurable outcomes that tell you how much, how well
and what difference your work is making. Stay
tuned for more in 2015.
How we build
community leaders
•
We support leadership development opportunities for youth and adults. We do this
by bringing a results-based leadership framework
to neighborhood leaders, creating pipelines and
pathways that move leaders to action and building
the social and political power of neighborhood
leaders to drive change.
•
We help build networks that make collaboration and collective impact possible. This
includes establishing and supporting self-generating networks of leaders mobilized around key
levers of change, supporting efforts to innovate,
and creating opportunities to connect people to
build an Our Detroit.
•
We work with partners to make it easier
for Detroit residents to collect and analyze
data. This includes strengthening organizations
that collect data, building residents’ capacity to
understand and use data, and building knowledge-sharing networks.
•
We work to strengthen community assets
that share our agenda for children. In this
strategy, we strengthen capacity of neighborhood
groups and core partners to sustain widespread
engagement of youth and residents, support key
core partners financially and assure neighborhoods
have critical assets.
mobile produce stand at the Brightmoor Farmway’s Harvest Fest.
24 THE SKILLMAN
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THE SKILLMAN
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EDUCATION
Building better classrooms through
networks of educators working to improve
­— By Krista Jahnke
In a fifth-grade classroom at Detroit Edison Public
five schools, including the three DEPSA schools, in
Detroit. “The next year, because the teachers knew
School Academy in 2013, a teacher felt confident that
that was an issue,
her kids knew one
they wanted to spend
particular concept
more time on it. But
well — how to find
the principal said,
volume. Then they
‘No, we don’t need to
bombed that
spend more time on
section of a
it, because now we
quarterly assessknow how to teach
ment.
it the right way.’”
The teacher
That’s the
was flummoxed.
power
of using data
Her class was
to inform instruction,
high-achieving,
one of the three
and they’d been
targeted pillars of
right with her
improvement for
during the lessons.
the Foundation’s
But the data didn’t
education work.
Total grants in
lie; somewhere,
It’s also the power of
they’d gotten lost.
2012–2013,
networked capacity building.
With the guidance of
Education:
Educators have much they
coaches from the Achievecan learn from one another,
ment Network (A-Net), the
and creating networks
teacher dug deeper and broke
Total
grant
where those learnings
apart the standards regarding
can happen is critical in
volume. What she discovered
dollars paid in
Detroit, where the landwas that the standard wasn’t
2012–2013,
scape is chaotic with 91
just about determining volume;
Education:
different districts. The Founit was also about determining
dation has facilitated a range
volume when there is missing
of these learning opportunities.
information. A-Net then did a profesA-Net is one example of that
sional development with all the teachers
kind of work. It received a $300,000 grant
on unpacking the state standards.
from the Foundation in 2014 to launch a Detroit
“The teacher went back and retaught the inforoperation of a national organization and is working
mation, and 85 percent of kids in that class did much
in 20 schools, including DEPSA.
better,” said Kim Bland, the New Paradigm chief
academic officer. Bland is in charge of federal proTop: Kim Bland reviews an A-Net group training exercise in the hallway
grams and curriculum for New Paradigm, which has
at DEPSA.
41
$9.9
million
26 THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION
assessments, conduct observations, and help crunch data,
Bland was a founding principal at DEPSA in
all in the name of improving student learning.
1998 and started her career teaching in Highland
Bland said she was working on principals one-on-one
Park and Detroit Public Schools. She also spent time
and asked A-Net to observe her and give her feedback. They
working for Edison Schools in New York, a job that
did so, and helped her think
gave her national
about looking at data differnetworks for educators
ently. Bland had been looking
to tap into and learn
at data across the four core
from. But in Detroit,
areas — science, math,
while she could pick
English, and social studies.
up the phone to call
“Ruth, my coach, asked
and chat with old
if I was looking at too many
friends, she didn’t
areas,” Bland said. “I was like,
have that formalized
‘We need to look at all these
relationship of sharing
areas because they’re all
what works with other
important.’ But she said,
educators.
‘How are you digging deep if
“A-Net brought
you are looking at so many?’”
that back to the table
It was a wake-up
for me,” Bland said.
A-Net Director of School Support Benjamin Curran and New Paradigm Loving
Academy
Principal
Ronald
Newton
review
and
discuss
their
action
plans
moment for Bland. A-Net
“That national feel and
best practices and things that you can take and massage also helped her develop what she calls “non-negotiables.”
and make it your own. I think a lot of schools that they So when she and a principal look at data, “you can’t use
vocabulary as a barrier, you can’t say because the kids are
work with may not have exactly the same population,
but similar populations of kids, and that has been really absent, you can’t say they came in low anyway.”
“It’s made my job easier because sometimes you just
great.”
can’t get to all of those things,” Bland said. “It gives me
A-Net is in its partner schools’ buildings weekly,
more time to focus with principals more strategically. And
supporting and meeting principals. Its coaches know
what goals the principals have set for the year, and they then they can be the Monday morning quarterback and work
simultaneously together on the same goals. “It’s huge.”
help them work on those goals. Coaches provide
Three Pillars of Quality
The backbone of our education work in Detroit is our belief
that great schools have:
•
•
Excellent math and reading instruction.
•
Strong connections to the surrounding community.
A school culture that values what students have to say
and helps them personalize learning.
Through our grant-making, we invest in Detroit education
with four things in mind:
•
We want to take good schools and make them
great. We help administrators, teachers, and parents
understand what quality looks like and how to get there.
•
We want parents and students to feel empowered to
make choices that work for them. We help school leaders and
teachers remove barriers that prevent parents and youth from
being true partners in their success. We support efforts to
increase access to more high-quality schools.
•
We want to increase the reach of quality schools by
fueling innovations that lead to new schools opening or
replication of those that get results. We help schools get off
the ground, through funding, technical assistance or by building
community connections.
•
We want to build an ecosystem of organizations that
works to improve outcomes for all Detroit kids. We work to
improve talent pipelines and to raise the standards of academic
excellence. We increase collaborations between districts and
advocate for policies that support high-quality schools.
THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION 27
Safety
AMUS brings blight cleanup, data to Osborn
— By Erin Hill Perry
K ids can’t thrive in environments where they don’t
officials in an effort to help the residents mobilize,
patrol, and be more mindful. He said he has been able
feel safe.
to build relationships with police, especially now that
So with the help of the American Urban Safety
the Detroit Police Department has assigned community
Initiative, neighborhood organizations like the Osborn
officers to neighborhoods.
Neighborhood Alliance (ONA) are now privy to
“Until now, people just viewed the cops as they
information about neighborhood crime trends, inforare
not
going to come,” Jones said. “We’re trying to
mation that allows stakeholders to make smart decifight this crime
sions about where
culture that says, ‘I
to target intervencan do what I want
tions and focus
to do, and I’m not
safety efforts, all
going to get caught.’
to make kids
So, now, we have
feel safer.
community police
AMUS started
in the neighboras an initiative in
hood. You can feel
Midtown Detroit
them, see them,
and expanded to
touch them, and
relate to them.”
At the monthly
meetings, AMUS
staff members share
Total grants in
Matrix Center volunteers board up building on Schaefer St.
statistics and trends.
2012–2013,
They let neighborSafety:
hood
leaders
know
what
corners
or
properties have
neighbordeveloped into hot spots — places where criminal
hoods in
incidents are occurring. They point out increases and
2013 and
Total grant
decreases in certain kinds of crimes and hypothesize
2014,
dollars paid in
about why they might be occurring. With police and
thanks in
community, they plan for strategies that can combat
2012–2013,
part to a
trouble.
$200,000
Safety:
“Cops alone can’t do it,” Jones said, “and the
grant from
neighborhoods
can’t either.”
the Skillman
AMUS is not only about data; it’s also about
Foundation.
taking
action. ONA employees and volunteers put in
Other funders
hundreds of hours alongside AMUS to clean up the
of the program include Wayne State University,
area’s blight to make the neighborhood safer and
the Kresge Foundation, Henry Ford Health System,
appealing to investors.
Jefferson East Inc., and the Detroit Medical Center.
In 2013, for example, ONA led seven major
Now, Quincy Jones, ONA’s executive cleanups in the neighborhood, ridding parks, alleys,
director, can attend monthly meetings with police
11
$1.43
million
28 THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION
and streets of trash — much of it from the area being
used as an illegal dumping ground — and boarding up
30 vacant buildings.
When the dozens of youth helped board up
vacant buildings in areas on Schoenherr Road and
Mapleridge Street and 6 Mile Road and Gunston
Street as part of ONA’s Live in Osborn initiative,
the students summoned their muses to create positive
works of expression.
“We put up murals that have stayed clean and
have not been tagged,” Kayana Sessoms said. “The
boarded-up buildings created a desolate look, so the
students helped brighten the community in the midst
of the transition from blight to the rehab stages. These
projects create safe pathways for youth to walk through
to get to bus stops and other areas, and they’ve said
they feel much safer walking down Schoenherr.”
Sessoms considers herself a stakeholder in the
Osborn neighborhood, where she has worked for
the last three years. She is an ONA board member
and also works as the Osborn program manager
with the Detroit branch of buildOn, an international
organization working to improve the education crisis.
ONA prides itself on being a well-organized
knowledge broker with part of its mission being to
attract individuals to the neighborhood and to bring
in resources. As the neighborhood’s safety improves,
that gets easier.
Osborn neighborhood cleanup.
“Now, we need rehab dollars,” Jones said. “We
may not be Midtown or downtown. However, we have
highly engaged residents. We want to look at economic
development in different ways — in terms of human
development and community development. We need
to figure out more ways to start getting major investors
in here.”
— Erin Hill Perry is a metro-Detroit-based freelance writer.
Creating a
culture of safety
The Skillman Foundation has long worked to make
Detroit feel safer for children. In 2013, recognizing
how integral that both the reality of and perception
of safety in neighborhoods and schools are for kids
to learn and grow, safety became an explicit program
area of the Foundation. To improve perceived and
real safety in the six neighborhoods, the Foundation
works with partners that can help it to:
•
Create safe pathways to schools and youth
development activities. This includes work
supporting mobile patrols and block clubs, clearly
identifying safe passageways, and blight cleanups
that make routes to school safer.
•
Support community-embedded policing.
This includes work to bring and equip dedicated
officers to neighborhoods, where they can build
positive relationships with community leaders and
youth, and it also supports improving access to
relevant crime data through CompStat.
•
Transform the community culture and
attitudes toward safety. Through this work, we
invest in strategies such as spreading Restorative
Practices and neighborhood safety committees. We
also work to bring communities together across the
city to align efforts.
•
Decrease incidents of youth violence.
Through this strategy, we fund violence prevention
initiatives targeted to youth, including ceasefire
initiatives, anti-gang interventions, and school
discipline-policy reforms.
THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION 29
YOUTH DEVELOPMENT
— By Erin Hill Perry
How out-of-school support is helping
one young mom reach graduation day
Zwadie King is a teenage mom with a dream. She
wants to graduate from high school, enroll at Alabama
A&M University, and eventually become a medical
examiner. But she knows it won’t be a cakewalk,
especially with a young son.
King, who works part-time at a Detroit restaurant, is grateful for her support system, which includes
the staff at Developing K.I.D.S., a nonprofit organization that began in 2006 and offers free year-round
programs, after-school services and summer activities
to strengthen children’s lives through prevention, family
management, and community support.
King came to the program as a self-proclaimed
loner with a bad attitude, but she said Developing
K.I.D.S. has changed her life over the last year.
“They helped me get on my feet,” said the high
school senior, who program leaders note is a gifted
dancer and Academic Games champ who loves math
and plays chess. “I had stopped going to school
because I was just working so much. So, I was
exhausted. I’m still exhausted. But I’m back in
school now, and I want to graduate. That’s my
main goal. I’m going to walk across that stage.
I don’t want to struggle for the rest of
my life.”
Developing K.I.D.S., which stands for
Developing Kingdoms In
Different Stages, is a founding
partner of the Don Bosco Hall
Community Resource Center in Detroit,
a key resource in the Cody Rouge
neighborhood.
Through funding from a Skillman
Foundation’s Community Connections
Grant, and dedicated staff and
volunteers, Developing K.I.D.S. is
able to maintain its programming.
Developing K.I.D.S. maintains after-school care at
two locations in the Cody Rouge neighborhood.
“We have received at least three requests to
expand to other locations,” said Kim Newberry, the
founder, president, and CEO of Developing K.I.D.S.
“Folks want us to come because we know how to get
the kids and keep them.”
A widowed mother of three, Newberry said her
home often was the after-school hangout spot for
children in the neighborhood.
“There would be kids in the front yard doing
hustle lessons or having tea parties on the porch with
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches,” the former teacher
recalled. “The kids had no real after-school care
or couldn’t afford the fees for programs.”
Kim Newberry, left, president and CEO of Developing K.I.D.S.,
line dances with Zwadie King at Developing K.I.D.S.’ Thanksgiving
dinner gathering.
Developing K.I.D.S. is one after-school
program of many offered for kids ages 5–18 at Don
Bosco Hall. It includes dinner and meets after school
twice a week. The program offers workshops that
address bullying, suicide, grief, trauma, employment
readiness, and more. Developing K.I.D.S.’ 2014
summer program drew more than 120 young people
five days a week.
“We have 25 young
people working for us in
supervised roles,”
including King, Newberry said. “They complete
a week and a half of
training on youth
development, conflict
resolution, and they learn
to run workshops. Even
our 10-year-olds know
how to be hired in four
years.”
Newberry said the
Total grants in
program’s focus on
education calls for daily
2012–2013,
reading time, homework
Youth Development:
assistance, and regular
report card checks. As
Total grant
a result, she said, the
dollars paid in
program boasts a 100
percent graduation rate
2012–2013,
for the last three years.
Youth
“Many of them are
Development:
closer to their DK family
than a lot of their biological
family,” Newberry said of the
participants.
King called the staff and students at Developing K.I.D.S. “a second family.”
“Even Zyion is a DK baby,” she said of her
son. “I’ve been taking him with me since he got
his 3-month shots. He loves it, and they love him.
“It’s a lot to balance, but I’m trying. I’m trying
so hard. Before it was like: ‘Why am I in school? I
can’t. I can’t. I can’t.’ And Ms. Kim said: ‘You can.
You will.’”
And Zwadie believes.
The ACT
Framework
The ACT (Achieve-Connect-Thrive) Framework guides our
work in youth development. This framework is informed by
the best knowledge from educational
and developmental psychology and
has identified the most important skill
sets kids need to excel in college and
careers. We fund work that helps kids:
•
Achieve: Programs that help kids
build skills necessary to achieve
academically and, specifically, develop
literacy and math proficiencies.
•
Connect: Programs that help kids
build relationship skills that help them
develop supportive relationships.
•
Thrive: Programs that help youth
build perseverance, self-efficacy, and
the resilience necessary to maintain the
effort to succeed.
68
$8
We invest in partners who can help us:
•
Build the necessary infrastructure
for a coordinated youth development
system.
million
•
•
Embed mechanisms to ensure
accountability and capacity for quality
and scale.
Build public will for youth development.
Through this work, we are building a better, higher-quality youth development system in Detroit. That
system includes the Youth Development Alliance, a
network of more than 200 youth-serving agencies that
collaborate, share learnings and work to raise quality
standards; the Youth Development Fund, through which
we award grants to programs that serve kids in the six
target neighborhoods and work under the ACT Framework;
and the Youth Development Resource Center, a technical assistance provider that works alongside grantees to
support their growth toward data-supported quality.
Above: Caden Bland, 7, right, holds Zwadie King’s son, Zyion,
7 months.
30 THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION
THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION 31
Social Innovation
­— By Krista Jahnke
Using different funding tools to
support resident-led community
development in Southwest Detroit
Inset: Cruz Lara, 4, mugs
for the camera.
old son Cruz to grow up in a
neighborhood where there is
community unity, where there
are many things for young
people to do for fun, and
where kids can walk their
streets safely.
And she believes her Southwest Detroit neighborhood is headed in that direction, thanks in part to
the community planning process of the VISTA Project.
The VISTA Project is a 20-block area in Southwest Detroit. The nonprofit Southwest Solutions is
working with neighborhood leaders and residents to
redevelop the site. With a $302,000 grant, Southwest
Solutions began an intensive community engagement
process to find out what the community wants to do
with the space. Additional Foundation support for the
project came in the form of social innovation tools like
32 THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION
employment for citizens of Southwest Detroit and
for the younger kids and teenagers who are not doing
anything,” Lara said. “I hope it brings in movie theatres, and other places teens can go and work. Instead
of socializing with a bad crowd. I hope it rejuvenates
the community.”
Making PRIs
For more than 50 years, the Skillman Foundation
made one kind of financial investment into its
partners – the traditional grant.
This changed in 2013, as the Foundation began using new financial tools to
find different solutions to old problems.
Program-related investments
(PRIs) are typically low-interest
loans. Like grants, they are
IRS-approved charitable expenditures that foundations can use to
achieve their programmatic goals.
Unlike grants, PRI loans have
below-market rates of return, and
are meant to be repaid. This allows
the Foundation to recycle the funds
and achieve greater impact over time
with those dollars. PRIs must meet the same
charitable purpose tests as grants.
The Foundation awarded $825,000 in PRIs
in 2013 and 2014. Those included:
11
$1.4
million
Top: Diana Lara, standing, helps
residents share feedback at a Vista
Project meeting with Terry Whitfield,
Southwest Solutions.
Diana Lara wants her 4-year-
especially youth voice — is key to the project.
“Dozens of youth from the three local high
schools completed the survey,” said Director Dan
Pederson. “Also, five youth were part of the survey
team and were trained in community outreach, survey
data collection, and team building.”
In Fall 2014, the Partnership team completed the
community surveying process that captured the input
of more than 700 people in the neighborhood and
surrounding area. The survey itself was codesigned with
youth input. Lara was one young outreach coordinator
who helped make the survey a tool that would solicit
the most critical feedback.
“It really hit home for me
when they asked for our input
for the survey questions,”
Total grants in
said Lara. “They were
2012–2013,
asking us, ‘Do you think
Social Innovation:
this is good enough to
go out to the community?’ And they took
Total grant
our opinions, and they
went with it. They did
dollars paid in
the changes we asked
2012–2013,
for. They really do want
Social
to hear from us.”
Of those surveyed,
Innovation:
51 percent were Hispanic or
Latino, 17 percent each were
African-American or white, and 3
percent were other races or multiracial. Of those,
49 percent said that the neighborhood does not have
enough goods and services, and 66 percent report
leaving the neighborhood to see movies or do other
family-friendly activities.
So it isn’t a big surprise to see that 69 percent said
they want more recreation areas in the neighborhood,
and 63 percent want more green spaces and parks.
The results of the survey were shared at a community meeting, at which more than 100 residents attended.
Over the next several years, the community engagement
team will continue to find ways to hear from residents.
The results will continue to direct Southwest Solutions’
efforts to execute the plan and redevelop properties so
the neighborhood is more viable and meets the needs of
the community.
Already, Lara is dreaming about what it will be like
when it is finished — construction should begin in 2015.
“I hope it brings in more revenue and more
PRIs. PRI stands for ProgramRelated Investment, which include
financial tools such as low-interest
loans, equity investments, and loan
guarantees.
In this case, the Foundation
guaranteed a $60,000 interest
reserve on a $1-million line of
credit provided by IFF.
The Foundation began using PRIs in 2013 and to
date has made $825,000 in funding through these tools.
“These tools allow the Foundation to invest in
projects that we otherwise wouldn’t with traditional grants,”
said Vice President of Social Innovation Chris Uhl.
One of the first investments was with the VISTA
Project, which began work in 2013 with community
engagement. In April 2014, Resident Engagement
Coordinator Mayte Penman was hired to train and
prepare a survey outreach team. Resident voice —
• $25,000 to Urban Neighborhoods Initiatives to
support the expansion of a youth-operated bike shop,
Southwest Rides.
• $50,000 to P3 Enterprises, a start-up aquaponic
produce growing facility in Brightmoor. This provides
a socially conscientious business resulting in
employment, economic empowerment, community
transformation, and revitalized lives to neighborhood
residents.
• $300,000 to Plymouth Education Center to help
the school in the North End neighborhood finance its
$3-million purchase of the YouthVille building.
• $250,000 to American Promise Schools to support
the start-up of a new nonprofit charter management
company that will help turn around existing, lowperforming schools.
THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION 33
Turn the page
to find out
more about
Skillman Good
Neighborhoods
34 THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION
THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION 35
KNOW our Target Neighborhoods
Vice President of Program & Policy Kristen McDonald shares insights into how many of
the places on the map on pages 34 and 35, created by illustrator and College for Creative
Studies graduate Meredith Moitke, are important to the neighborhoods where we work.
Kristen McDonald
Brightmoor Community Center
Located right across from Gompers Elementary School, this
community center is a hub of activity for adults and youth alike,
with everything from daily art to dance classes. The Community
Center almost closed in recent years due to a lack of funding. But
under the leadership of Executive Director Dennis Talbert, its
doors are open and girls like our three cover models, members
of the D.A.N.C.E. program that practices at the Center six days
a week, are doing better because of it.
Brightmoor Farmway
Drive through Brightmoor, and you might be surprised
to feel like you’re in some faraway country setting, not a
neighborhood of a major urban city. That’s due in part to
the Farmway, led by Riet Schumack, which is a collection of
community-owned gardens on once-abandoned or blighted
lots. The Farmway spans 21 blocks and features dozens of
gardens, orchards, mini-parks and meeting spots.
Don Bosco Hall
The Community Resource Center in the Cody Rouge neighborhood is teeming with activity and enrichment for children nearly
around the clock. Led by President & CEO Charles Small, it houses
a small charter school called the WAY Academy, is home to the
Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance, and to a plethora of
youth programming, including to Developing K.I.D.S. and PEEPs.
Detroit Cristo Rey High School
The private Catholic high school formed in Southwest Detroit in
2008 and graduated its first class in 2012. With three graduation
classes under its belt, Cristo Rey, led by Principal Michael Khoury,
can boast that it has 100 percent college acceptance since its
founding. The kids at Cristo Rey go to school four days a week
and work in an internship program the fifth day, which subsidizes
tuition and gives the student real-world working experience.
36 THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION
Cody High School
It wasn’t long ago that this school was deemed a “drop-out
factory.” The ugly label no longer applies. The graduation
rates are up at the Cody High campus after it was converted
into three small high schools in 2009. In 2013, the three
schools had a combined 74 percent graduation rate ­— well
ahead of the rate for the rest of the city. Thanks to the
partnership with nonprofit Life Remodeled, the schools
inside Cody now have a new medical simulation lab and
a leadership lab.
Brenda Scott Academy
Brenda Scott, an EAA elementary-middle school in
the Osborn neighborhood, has exemplified the way a
school can work with community on the common goal
of improving outcomes for kids. A parent engagement
project in Brenda Scott has volunteers in the school
throughout the day who serve as guides and touch
points for other parents who come in with questions.
The school has partnered with the Osborn Neighborhood Alliance on a number of initiatives, including
attending CompStat data meetings to ensure kids
walking to and from its grounds are safer.
YouthVille
Located in the Northend neighborhood, YouthVille also led by
Small is another example of a hub. In one building right on Woodward Ave., you have the YouthVille facility, a youth development
operation with robotics and STEM programs, a music studio, a
computer lab and even a TV station. And down the hall is Plymouth
Educational Center, a charter school that has had high graduation
and college-acceptance rates in its first few years of operation.
Southwest Detroit Lighthouse Academy
It has been difficult to lure high-quality national charter
operators to Detroit for a variety of reasons, ranging
from an over-saturated market to lack of ready-tomove-in real estate. But there are successes, and
Lighthouse in Chadsey Condon is one. Lighthouse
operates schools in seven states, and opened its doors
in Detroit in 2013 in a newly built facility. The school
offers a rigorous curriculum infused with arts and has
more than 350 students in grades K–6. It will add one
grade each year until it is a full K–12.
THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION 37
News
My Brother’s Keeper
listening event and
challenge acceptance
In May 2014, more than 300 Detroit residents –
including more than 100 youth – joined officials
with the My Brother’s Keeper initiative in Detroit
for a listening evening.
Broderick Johnson, head of the My Brother’s Keeper Task Force, and Michigan Representative Thomas Stallworth convened a meeting
focusing on outcomes for Detroit’s young men
of color. That evening, Johnson joined Detroit
Mayor Mike Duggan, W. K. Kellogg Foundation
President & CEO La June Montgomery
Tabron, and Detroit Free Press Pulitzer Prizewinning columnist Stephen Henderson at
the Charles H. Wright Museum of African
American History for a forum and youth panel.
On Dec. 1, the Foundation cohosted an
event with Duggan, former Mayor Dave Bing
and dozens of other civic leaders to accept
President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper
Challenge. The Foundation committed $2 million
in support and workgroups formed that will begin
formulating a plan to improve outcomes for
young men in 2015.
Ramon Mendez, right, and other youth panelists, share their views about
what needs to be done to help youth in Detroit.
My Brother’s Keeper
Detroit youth
panelists pose with
Tonya Allen, left,
President & CEO
of The Skillman
Foundation
Reuss, Emerson join
Skillman Board of Trustees;
Baker Lewis and Ewing retire
In July, two Detroit business leaders joined the Foundation’s Board of Trustees: Mark Reuss, executive vice
president, global product development, purchasing,
and supply chain at General Motors; and Bill Emerson,
CEO of Quicken Loans.
Reuss is a metro Detroit native and mechanical
engineer who began his career with GM as a student
38 THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION
Senior Program Officer
Robert Thornton, who
leads the Foundation’s
young men of color work,
speaks at the December
My Brother’s Keeper
event.
intern in 1983. He has held numerous engineering and
management positions with GM, including serving as
chief engineer of GM’s large luxury vehicles and
manufacturing body shop tooling launches. He also
served as GM’s vice president of engineering after
spending two years overseas as vice president and
managing director of Australia and New Zealand.
Emerson joined Quicken Loans in 1993 as a
mortgage banker and has served as its CEO since 2002.
In his role, he is responsible for the leadership and
growth of Quicken Loans, which employs more than
10,000 people and closed a record $80 billion in home
loan volume in 2013. Previously, Emerson led several
business units at Quicken
Loans as well as mortgage
operations for the company,
where he was responsible for
driving performance within
Quicken Loans’ businesses.
“In addition to their
significant business influence,
Bill Emerson
both of these men bring a
passion and commitment to children,” Tonya Allen
said. “We believe we are better positioned than ever to
achieve our mission and goal
to see meaningful graduation
rates in the city of Detroit
improve with their help.”
At the end of 2014,
longtime Trustees David
Baker Lewis and Stephen
Ewing retired after eight
and 19 years of service,
respectively.
Mark Reuss
Skillman Foundation joins
Detroit’s Grand Bargain
On June 3, the Foundation announced that it would
contribute $3.5 million over 20 years to the Grand
Bargain, specifically to offset post-retirement health
care costs to former employees of the City of Detroit
and their children.
The fund, created in late 2013, includes major
support from 12 other foundations with historical ties
to Detroit and to Michigan. With the addition of the
Foundation’s funds, the Grand Bargain stood at $369.5
million.
“The financial relief that the Grand Bargain
will provide to children and grandchildren of Detroit
pensioners is significant,” Allen said. U.S. District
Judge Gerald Rosen, a mediator in the bankruptcy
case, “was persuasive in helping us to understand the
Grand Bargain’s impact on making Detroit a healthier
and stable environment for children. We want children
in Detroit to grow up ready for college, career, and
life and we believe they have a better chance to do
that if the City of Detroit is financially sound.”
Other funders included Kresge Foundation, W. K.
Kellogg Foundation, the Hudson-Webber Foundation,
the C. S. Mott Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the
McGregor Fund, the Knight Foundation, the Community Foundation for Southeastern Michigan, the William
Davidson Foundation, the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb
Family Foundation, the A. Paul and Carol C. Schaap
Foundation, and the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher
Foundation.
Tonya Allen named to National
Convening Council
In July 2014, Allen joined a distinguished list of national
nonprofit and corporate leaders on the newly formed
National Convening Council, an independent private
sector initiative bringing together leaders from business,
philanthropy and the faith, youth, and nonprofit communities.
The NCC works parallel to the White House’s
My Brother’s Keeper Initiative and is headed by former
NBA and Michigan State star Earvin (Magic) Johnson
and former Deloitte CEO Joe Echevarria.
The NCC will draw attention to and support the
multisector work to support young men of color, and
will facilitate communication and coordination that cuts
across sectors. Members of the NCC will spend the next
few months traveling the country, lifting up examples of
cross-sector efforts that are having a positive impact on
boys and young men of color.
Mayor Duggan announces youth
employment partnership
At the Detroit Regional Chamber’s Mackinac Policy
Conference in May 2014, Mayor Mike Duggan announced a new summer employment program for
Detroit youth that aims to put 5,000 youth to work
in 2015.
The announcement began a collaboration among
Duggan, the Skillman Foundation, the W. K. Kellogg
Foundation, City Connect Detroit, and the Detroit
Employment Solutions Corporation (DESC) to create
THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION 39
jobs for Detroit teens during the summer of 2015
through an eight-week summer work program
designed to create career pathways.
The city is paying half of each youth’s summer
employment with the help of the Detroit City Council’s
$3 million from existing federal block grants. The goal
is to hire 5,000 youth for eight weeks at approximately
$2,000 a teen.
Coalition forms to
improve Detroit Schools
was cemented in late 2013 with the announcement
of the Carol Goss Leadership Scholarship at the
University of Michigan School of Social Work.
The award will honor Goss’ long career as an
advocate for children, a career that launched after
the Detroit native earned a master’s degree from
the University of Michigan. The award will annually
support one talented student from Detroit pursuing
a master’s degree through the U-M School of Social
Work. The scholarship, which is supported through an
endowed fund, will provide a $10,000 award annually.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who announced a youth employment partnership
with the Foundation in May 2014, speaks at a My Brother’s Keeper event.
Courtesy of Crain Detroit’s Business
Recognition from Crain’s
Detroit Business
In December 2014, a special announcement was held
introducing a new coalition — the Coalition for the
Future of Detroit Schoolchildren.
The Coalition is made up of a diverse cross-section of leaders representing Detroit’s education, civic,
philanthropic, business, religious, and community
sectors. The Coalition formed independently of any
government body and includes a 36-member Steering
Committee, as well as a larger group of community
stakeholders. It embarked on an urgent course to make
recommendations for large-scale shifts in Detroit’s
broken education landscape.
$10K scholarship established
in Carol Goss’ name at
U-M School of Social Work
Longtime Skillman Foundation president Carol Goss’
legacy of leadership and support for Detroit children
40 THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION
Jordan joins staff as
Foundation’s new CFO; Hanson
promoted to Chief of Staff
The Foundation welcomed Maria Jordan as its new
Vice President, Operations & CFO in December.
Jordan joined Skillman after working for six years at
the Ruth Mott Foundation.
The Foundation also promoted longtime Director
of Communications William Hanson to its executive
leadership team in the role of Chief of Staff. Additionally, Krista Jahnke was promoted to senior communications officer.
Former Skillman Trustee
Bill Hoglund dies
Bill Hoglund, a retired longtime General Motors
executive and a former Skillman Foundation Trustee,
died on June 9, 2014, in Harbor Springs, Mich. He
was 79.
Hoglund served on the Foundation’s board from
1984 to 1995.
During his 36-year tenure with General Motors,
Hoglund was the company’s CFO and also led the
Pontiac, Saturn, the former Buick-Oldsmobile-Cadillac
Group, and the Automotive Components Group.
heartening,” Allen said. “We share a common belief that
Detroiters should have a say in coming up with solutions
that can make Detroit schools work for kids, and that
now, as the city is recovering in so many other ways, is
the time to make real change happen.”
The Coalition held its first meeting in December
to begin preparing recommendations to address the
most pressing problems for Detroit schools. As it works
to reach consensus on various issues before its March
31st deadline, the Coalition will recommend solutions
for making Detroit’s school landscape more equitable,
accessible, and successful for all Detroit children.
Tonya Allen and Rev. Wendell Anthony, two of the co-chairs, announce the
Coalition for the Future of Detroit Schoolchildren.
Chris Uhl, center, accepts his 40 Under 40 award with David Foltyn, CEO
of Honigman (left) and Daniel Duggan, reporter for Crain’s Detroit Business.
Vice President of Social Innovation Chris Uhl was
named to the 2014 Crain’s Detroit Business’ 40 Under
40 class and the Foundation was selected as one of
75 “Cool Places to Work.”
Uhl was selected for his role in developing the
Foundation’s capability to move beyond grants to
program-related investments in the form of low-interest loans from its grant budget and loan guarantees
backed by $10 million of the Foundation’s endowment.
The Coalition is led by five co-chairs, including
Skillman Foundation President & CEO Tonya Allen.
The other chairs are: Rev. Wendell Anthony, Fellowship Chapel and president of the Detroit branch of
the NAACP; David Hecker, president of AFT
Michigan/AFL-CIO; John Rakolta Jr., CEO of
Walbridge; and Angela Reyes, executive director
of Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation.
“The fact that so many leaders from highly
influential corners of Detroit would come together
despite differing politics and agendas is incredibly
Investure hired as
Foundation’s OCIO
After a yearlong exploration and national search,
the Skillman Foundation Board of Trustees hired
Virginia-based financial firm Investure, LLC as its
new outsourced CIO in 2014.
Investure, which has approximately $11 billion
dollars across its portfolios, began managing the Foundation’s corpus worth half a billion dollars in September.
“We’re pleased to begin what we know will be
a long and productive relationship with Investure, a
national leader that pioneered the outsourced CIO
model,” Allen said. “This firm stood out during our
search because of its deep expertise, impressive results
and firm commitment to providing customized service
based on its clients’ unique assets and needs.”
THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION 41
GrantS Summary
FINANCIALS
Statements of Financial Position
ASSETS
2012
Total number of grants paid: 489 grants
Grants awarded: $16,913,581
Cash and cash equivalents
Investments, at fair value
Other, including accrued interest and dividends
Total assets
2013
2012
11,170 457,870 1,111 470,151 8,689
428,216
1,194
438,099
LIABILITIES AND UNRESTRICTED NET ASSETS
2013
Total number of grants paid: 443 grants
Grants awarded: $16,880,159
Community Connection Small Grants*
2012: 83 grants awarded, totaling $213,046
2013: 100 grants awarded, totaling $363,927
* The Foundation awards grants to nonprofit organizations with federal tax-exempt status and revenues greater
than $100,000. Through the Community Connections
small grants program, the Foundation can provide
opportunities beyond these limitations to small organizations and residents working in our six neighborhoods.
To make this possible, we have partnered with Prevention
Network, an organization that has managed a statewide
small grants program for more than 25 years.
Top: Lawrence Carr, 8, and Mekhi Chappell, 5, grin as
Markos Segarra, 7, right, spins his friends on tire
swing in Clark Park.
Bottom: Osborn resident Ca’ Maria Donald, 2, helps
Matrix Center youth volunteers and neighbors paint murals
on vacant businesses at 12501 E. Seven Mile Rd.
Grants payable
Accounts payable and accrued liabilities
Unrestricted net assets
Total liabilities and unrestricted net assets
1,134 3,553 465,464 470,151 1,149
3,919
433,031
438,099
Statements of income, expenses,
and changes in unrestricted net assets
INCOME
20132012
Contributions
Interest
Dividends, other
Investment management fees
Total income
300 971 1,628 (1,095)
1,804 1,679
1,339
(987)
2,031
16,303 370 5,345 1,376 23,394 14,462
330
5,181
1,016
20,989
(21,590)
19,965 34,058 32,433 433,031 465,464 (18,958)
9,610
21,357
12,009
421,022
433,031
EXPENSES
Grants paid
Grant-related expenses
Administrative expenses
Federal excise and other taxes
Total expenses
Grants and expenses in excess of income
Realized gain on investments
Change in unrealized market appreciation
Increase in unrestricted net assets
Unrestricted net assets, beginning of year
Unrestricted net assets, end of year
* All numbers shown in thousands.
42 THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION
THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION 43
HOW TO APPLY FOR
A SKILLMAN GRANT
Skillman Foundation grantseekers and grantees must:
Be a nonprofit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization or a
government or public agency (city, county, state, public
school district); be a publicly supported charity as
defined in Section 509(a) of the Internal Revenue Code;
have total revenues of at least $100,000 for the preceding fiscal year and must provide a copy of a current
financial audit conducted by an independent certified
public accountant. In policy and practice, offer opportunity and service to all, regardless of age, race, creed,
gender, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and
ethnicity. Learn more at skillman.org.
WHAT WE FUND
The Foundation has an annual investment budget
of around $17 million. We fund projects that explicitly
44 THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION
benefit children and work in our investment areas
of education, community leadership, safety, neighborhoods, social innovation, and youth develop­ment. Most
of our funding supports work happening in six Detroit
neighborhoods: Brightmoor, Cody Rouge, Chadsey
Condon, Northend Central, Osborn, and Southwest
Detroit. Approximately 85 percent of the Foundation’s
grantmaking is to long-term partners in our community.
OUR MISSION
A voice for Detroit children since 1960, the Skillman
Foundation works to improve meaningful graduation
rates, so Detroit kids are ready for college, career,
and life.
Foundation HISTORY
Our founder, Rose Skillman, has
been gone for more than a quarter-century, but her unwavering
advocacy for children lives on
through the Skillman Foundation’s
work and leadership in Detroit. Most
recently, it continues through Tonya
Allen, who became the Foundation’s
sixth president on Jan. 1, 2014. Allen
is guiding the Foundation through a
strategic shift as it refocuses all of its
work on a singular goal: advancing
meaningful high school graduation
rates so youth are prepared for
college, career, and life. She follows a
history of strong change-makers —
Carol Goss, who retired in 2013 after
leading the Foundation for nearly a
decade, Kari Schlachtenhaufen, Bill
Beckham, and Leonard Smith.
Rose and Robert Skillman, both
born in Ohio, married in Cincinnati in 1907. One of
the early pioneers in the growth of the Minnesota
Mining and Manufacturing Co., Robert served as the
company’s sales representative for the eastern half of
the country, developed 3M’s foreign sales in England
and Europe, and became the company’s vice president
and director. Following several initial years of struggle,
the company flourished as continuous advances in
technology led to the inventions of waterproof
sandpaper, masking tape, and Scotch tape.
After a long career at 3M, Robert retired and
moved with Rose to Bloomfield Hills and Winter Park,
Fla. In Bloomfield Hills, the Skillmans purchased
Fairfield Farms, which they transformed into a replica
of a white-fenced Kentucky farm, complete with a
stable of horses and colts. In 1939, Robert Skillman
returned to 3M to negotiate the purchase of the
Studebaker plant on Piquette Street in the Milwaukee
Junction area of Detroit’s Central Northend neighborhood. He also coordinated the project that would
transform the facility into an adhesive plant. He
worked for this company as an executive consultant
until his death in 1945.
After Robert’s death, Rose Skillman continued to
live in Bloomfield Hills and Florida for nearly 40 more
years. In addition to her love of animals — particularly
horses and dogs — and her appreciation of the arts,
Rose Skillman’s commitment to the welfare of vulnerable children continued to grow.
Initially, Rose made charitable contributions to
organizations that served children. Subsequently, she
worked with her attorney and accountant to incorporate the Skillman Foundation in December 1960. She
served as president until she was named honorary chair
in 1964. She remained a trustee of the Foundation until
her death in 1983.
The Skillman Foundation staff and trustees are
committed to honoring Rose Skillman’s dreams, and to
leveraging our grant-making and broader influence to
improve the lives of Detroit children.
THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION 45
Counselor and assistant football coach Jimmie Knight
reassures Cody High junior Cornelius Kellogg before
the first home game on the new turf.
STAFF LIST
As of December 2014
Office of the President
Tonya Allen, President and Chief Executive Officer
William Hanson, Chief of Staff
Arnett Parham, Executive Assistant to the President
Ashley Aidenbaum, Special Projects Manager
Marie Colombo, Director of Evaluation and Learning
Kamilah Henderson, Evaluation Fellow
Krista Jahnke, Senior Communications Officer
Shelly Watts, Administrative Assistant
Program
Kristen McDonald, Vice President, Program & Policy
Matthew Hoerauf, Administrative Assistant
Tammie Jones, Program Officer, Education and
Community Leadership
Henry McClendon, Program Officer, Community
Leadership* and Safety
David McGhee, Program Officer, Youth
Development* and Community Leadership
Danielle McLaughlin, Senior Program Analyst
Tamalon Meeks, Associate Program Officer,
Education and Safety
Arielle Milton, Administrative Assistant
Robert Thornton, Senior Program Officer, Safety*
and Youth Development
Punita Dani Thurman, Senior Program Officer,
Education* and Youth Development
Eboni Wells, Public Policy Fellow
*Team lead
Social Innovation
Chris Uhl, Vice President, Social Innovation
Paty Hinojosa, Program Officer
Nyasia Valdez, center, is a Southwest
Detroit youth making a difference. Page 10.
Operations
Maria Jordan, Vice President and CFO
Sarah Mather, Controller
Suzanne Moran, Grants Manager
Siobhan O’Laoire, Grants Management Associate
DeQuan O’Neal, Office Assistant
Jaime Schubring, Administrative Assistant
Simonne Searles, Administrative Assistant/
HR Assistant
Carla Smith, Human Resources Officer
Danielle Skonieski, Office Manager
Kenneth Daniel, Student Intern,
Cass Technical High School
Leslie Garcia, Student Intern, Detroit Cristo Rey
Paulina Romo, Student Intern, Detroit Cristo Rey
Marialicia Garza, Student Intern, Detroit Cristo Rey
Ivanna Hernandez, Student Intern, Detroit Cristo Rey
Board of Trustees
Lizabeth Ardisana, Chair
Herman B. Gray, Vice Chair
Tonya Allen
David Baker Lewis*
Bill Emerson
Stephen E. Ewing*
Denise Ilitch
Mary L. Kramer
Amyre Makupson
Eddie R. Munson
Jerry Norcia
Mark Reuss
*Retired from the board at the end 2014.
View the interactive report
with photo galleries, videos,
and more at
RiseTogether.skillman.org.
Keep the conversation
about Detroit’s future going
on social media with
#RiseTogether.
Project Editor: Krista Jahnke
Contributing Editor: William Hanson
Photography: All photos by Paul Engstrom, unless otherwise noted.
Illustration: Meredith Miotke
Copy Editing: Michele Siuda Jacques
Design: Kathy Horn, Blue Skies Studio, Ann Arbor, MI
Printing: Inland Press, Detroit, MI
46 THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION
THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION 47
Cody High School sophomore Zyaire Gardner and freshman Jemillah Joshua
walk off the field after a football game in 2014.
THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION
Kids matter here
100 Talon Centre Drive
Suite 100
Detroit, MI 48207
Phone: (313) 393-1185
www.skillman.org
@skillmanfound
skillmanfoundation
skillmanfound
skillmanfoundation
48 THE SKILLMAN
FOUNDATION