Foundation grantmaking focuses on four major program areas. These programs touch upon a number of major issues. Each grantmaking program also works within clearly stated geographic parameters or regions.
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Arts Education in Michigan: Fostering Creativity and Innovation
Since it was established in 1926, the Mott Foundation has maintained a deep commitment to its hometown of Flint, Michigan. This longstanding support reflects the Foundation’s belief that through involved people partnering with strong organizations, the greater Flint community can face its challenges and create a more vibrant and sustainable future.
This grantmaking, done primarily through the Foundation’s Flint Area program, includes support for educational and cultural programs; economic and downtown development; job training; and emergency and human services.
By ALICIA KITSUSE, Flint Area program officer
Like many other cities with a strong industrial past, the Mott Foundation’s home community of Flint, Michigan, saw its fortunes decline as manufacturing jobs and people moved elsewhere, leading to widespread property vacancy, high unemployment and rising crime.
Gradually, Flint is regaining vitality, in part through efforts — many of them funded with the help of Mott — to revitalize the city’s downtown core. However, broad-based recovery will depend on engagement by all of Flint’s stakeholders in creating a blueprint for the future.
“Imagine Flint,” the city’s first comprehensive planning process in five decades, is designed to do just that.
Through a variety of approaches, “Imagine Flint” is involving a broad cross-section of community members in creating the vision, values and strategies that will guide the community’s physical, economic and environmental development over the next 20 years. The project is funded by the Housing and Urban Development Department’s Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, with additional support from Mott.
The Foundation recognizes that positive, sustainable change is possible when people work together to face their challenges, build on their assets and plan for a more vibrant and opportunity-rich future. If you’re a citizen of Flint or simply care about the city, share your vision for its future by visiting www.imagineflint.com.
This renewal grant will provide the Flint office of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation with multiyear funding to continue the work of transforming distressed neighborhoods into livable communities. With a focus on creating sustainable communities, the grantee provides local organizations with technical assistance and local policy support in addition to loans and grants. During the next three years, the organization will continue its efforts to implement the Flint River District Strategy and enhance neighborhood and community partnerships in Flint.
This grant will provide funding to the Greater Flint Health Coalition to implement the Flint Healthcare Sector Initiative. The purpose of the initiative is to create sustainable employment and promote career advancement for low-income Flint residents by working with health industry employers to restructure their hiring, retention, and promotional practices for entry-level healthcare employees. The Greater Flint Health Coalition will continue to work closely with the National Economic Development and Law Center, who developed this project with a three-year research and planning grant from the Mott Foundation.