About Mott
"It seems to me that every person, always, is in a kind of informal partnership with his community. His own success is dependent to a large degree on that community, and the community, after all, is the sum total of the individuals who make it up. The institutions of a community, in turn, are the means by which those individuals express their faith, their ideals and their concern for fellow men."
-- Charles Stewart Mott, 1875-1973
This central belief of Charles Stewart Mott was the basis upon which the Mott Foundation was established as a private foundation in 1926. While this remains the guiding principle of the Foundation's grantmaking, we have refined and broadened our grantmaking over time to reflect changing national and world environment conditions.
Underlying all of our grantmaking programs are certain values that provide a basis for the inter-relatedness of our grantmaking.
As a foundation, we believe that learning how people can live together most effectively is one of the fundamental needs of humanity. In so doing, people create a sense of "community," or belonging, whether at the local neighborhood level or as a global society.
Building strong communities through collaboration provides a basis for positive change. As we have found, the most effective solutions often are those devised locally, where people have the greatest stake in the outcome.
For that reason, strong, self-reliant individuals are essential to a well-functioning society. Moreover, individuals have a critical role to play in shaping their surroundings.
There is a fundamental need to promote the social, economic and political empowerment of all individuals. All individuals should have the right to work and pay their own way, the right to an education, the right to better themselves, and the right to a clean and healthy environment. Therein, society must respect individual, human and civil rights, and those rights should be protected by law.
At the same time, such rights carry with them responsibilities, and it is incumbent upon us to encourage citizen participation. All individuals have an obligation not only to seek out but also to seize opportunities that make them a vital part of solving problems, to work toward self-sufficiency and to help foster social cohesion.
Also fundamental to any grantmaking is leadership. Clearly, leadership springs from the needs and values of people; likewise, leadership can inspire the aspirations and potential of others. It is our practice to seek out and support leadership in all the projects and programs we support.
Finally, respect for the diversity of life is integral to our work in all areas. The ultimate quality of life is tied inextricably to maintaining a sustainable human and physical environment.
Through our programming, we endeavor to enhance the capacity of individuals, families or institutions at the local level and beyond. We hope that our collective work in any program area could lead to systemic change.
In the final analysis, the mission of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation is to support efforts that promote a just, equitable and sustainable society.