By MAGGIE JARUZEL-POTTER
[Editors note: This article is one of several contained in the
Mott Foundation 2008 Annual Report
] Philip Shaltz is one of the original investors in the Uptown Six, which is helping revive Flint’s downtown. He says that almost anything is possible when community leaders pool their time, energy, passion and “a little bit of money.”
Reta Stanley, president of
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Flint, adds another requirement tenacity.
Meanwhile, Joel Rash manager of
Launch, an entrepreneurial program at the
University of Michigan-Flint says that to make positive change happen, leaders also need a healthy balance of creative risk-taking and practical skills.
“It’s not usually the pie-in-the-sky ideas that work, but things that come from real life,” he said.
Philip Shaltz is one of the original investors in the Uptown Six, which is helping revive Flint’s downtown. |
Shaltz the businessman, Stanley the nonprofit professional, and Rash the calculated risk-taker all grew up in the Flint area and have spent many years — publicly and privately — implementing real-life ideas to improve the city and its organizations for individuals and families.
The trio’s hands-on leadership style is a common trait in people who head nonprofit organizations and institutions that the Mott Foundation funds, whether locally, nationally or internationally.
Decades ago, when Charles Stewart Mott, the institution’s founder, was considering whether to fund an organization, he often said he liked to “bet on people,” especially those in leadership roles. For him, investing Foundation resources in smart, creative and passionate leaders was as important as investing his personal finances wisely.
That principle still guides Mott’s grantmaking.
In 2008, as in previous years, Mott program staff reviewed the vision, skills and track records of leaders in the Foundation’s home community of Flint before providing financial support to their organizations. While the specifics varied, those given grants routinely earned high marks for strong and effective leadership.
Shaltz, Stanley and Rash all know well the community’s challenges and opportunities, yet they have decided to work diligently to turn the former into the latter.
“We can make a difference, and we are making a difference,” Shaltz said.
“But it’s been a horrendously difficult task — emotionally, physically, psychologically and logistically. So far, we’re pleased with where we’re at.”
The change Shaltz refers to is visible along either side of the red bricks of S. Saginaw Street, the north-south artery through the heart of downtown Flint. Several formerly boarded-up storefronts and hotels are now either open for business or preparing to open within the next 12 to 18 months, with development dollars totaling almost $200 million since 2004. Of that amount, $10 million came from five Mott grants and two Foundation-administered projects in 2008 alone.
Decisions about how to revitalize the city’s core are not made quickly or in a vacuum, Shaltz says, because everyone involved wants to minimize the chances of failure.
“There have been a lot of disappointments in Flint during the past 15 or 20 years, but now there’s a sense of expectation with new employees working downtown and college students living downtown,” he said.
Joel Rash is manager of Launch, an entrepreneurial program at the University of Michigan-Flint. |
“We’re not rushing to put businesses into storefronts, because we don’t want to be boarding up any buildings that have already been unboarded.”
While much of the downtown’s progress has resulted from public, private and nonprofit partnerships, the same has been true for the successes seen at Launch, says Rash, a longtime Flint booster who maneuvers downtown streets and sidewalks on his bicycle — a replacement for the skateboard he rode when working as a promoter for visiting punk rock bands in the late 1980s and 1990s.
Launch, located on UM-Flint’s urban riverfront campus, taps the entrepreneurial skills and community connections Rash developed as a young commercial property owner and as coordinator for the Downtown Facade Improvement Program at the Community Foundation of Greater Flint.
Mott has provided UM-Flint Launch with two grants totaling $290,000 for its entrepreneurial programs. [
Incubator Without walls/Microlending Program and
College Entrpreneurship Program]
Approximately 50 university students are in some stage of starting a small business through Launch — whether it is a graphic design firm, an urban culture and fashion magazine, or a Web server and technology company. They listen to Rash, they say, because he’s made mistakes, knows the pitfalls to avoid and has a sixth sense for moving ideas to market or “commercializing ideas” in the Flint context.
“Joel reminds us of the competitive advantage of being in Flint,” said Eric Knific, CEO of Epic Technologies Solutions, a company that started through Launch and operates 20 to 30 Web servers in the Detroit area and 20 to 30 more in Flint.
“The cost to rent office space is cheaper here than in a place like Austin, Texas, so why wouldn’t technology companies like mine, or phone call centers, be located here?”
Flint’s low threshold for entry, as Rash calls it, paved the way for him to buy commercial property years ago.
“I only had $500 to put down,” he said.
“I didn’t own a house, I didn’t own a car; I owned a skateboard. I had no collateral, but I was able to buy a downtown building. I couldn’t have done that in very many other cities.”
Reta Stanley works with children on reading as part of a mentoring program called "Lunch Buddies." |
Flint’s distressed economy, primarily due to the region’s longtime dependence on the automotive industry, is also what makes it an inexpensive place to do business, Rash says.
Flint’s tough socioeconomic conditions also affect the number and categories of children mentored through Big Brothers Big Sisters, Stanley says.
Although the local chapter has served children of prisoners for many years, in 2004 it increased efforts to provide mentorships for children of incarcerated parents after receiving funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to participate in Big Brothers Big Sisters’ national Amachi prisoner project.
In 2008, Flint Big Brother Big Sisters expanded its reach by linking the national Amachi prisoner project with a local partnership between itself and Motherly Intercession, a Flint-based nonprofit.
The new program has received support through a one-year, $175,000 Mott grant.
About 32 percent, or 352 of the total 1,100 children and youth enrolled in Flint’s program, qualify for special services, such as mentoring, academic support and visitations with their incarcerated parents. During the first six months of 2009, 238 of the 352 qualified children of prisoners were served through the program. Since 2004, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Flint has provided services to nearly 700 children whose parents were incarcerated in a state or federal prison, Stanley says.
For her, describing the leadership skills required to serve in the top spot of one of the community’s oldest operating nonprofit organizations is akin to spelling out the qualities needed to be an effective Big Brother or Big Sister.
“My mom taught me the importance of staying with a task and the importance of being dependable,” Stanley said.
“She taught me to do what you say you will do, and to care about others.”
Stanley’s expectation for the new program mixes with her enthusiasm about the positive changes she sees in the city where she and her husband, Woodrow, grew up. He served as mayor and now is a state representative. The couple also raised their two children, Heather Williams and Jasmine McKenney, in Flint.
“There’s a real excitement in Flint right now that change is possible,” Reta Stanley said.
“I’m privileged to sit in this seat at Big Brothers Big Sisters at this time; to be here to invest in our children and to support them in whatever future they choose — for themselves and this city.”
Helping young people reach their dreams
Alfred Bruce Bradley has lived his dream: He has either met or shared the stage with the top tap-dancers in the world. Still, he’s hungry for something more.
“To see my best day yet, that’s what drives me,” the Mount Morris resident said.
“I’ve laid the foundation for that best day to come into being. I’ve done something with my time on this planet by trying to make life a little better for others and being faithful in the small things.”
Others, such as Paul Torre, president of the Flint Institute of Music (FIM), say Bradley is a community leader who has been faithful in the big things too, such as empowering Flint-area youth to create positive goals for themselves. Torre describes Bradley as “an exceptional man and a hero to many.”
"I've done something with my time ... by trying to make life a little better for others ... " Bruce Bradley | “Bruce wants to use tap to help young people reach their dreams, not just in tap or music, but in whatever area they pursue,” Torre said.
Although Bradley has taught tap dancing to hundreds of people of all ages for decades, it’s the Tapology Dance Festival that gets his pulse racing.
In 2008, the Mott Foundation provided a $50,000 grant to FIM to help support the sixth annual festival on the Flint Cultural Center campus.
In addition to bringing together talented dancers from many states, the festival creates an opportunity for about 1,000 Flint public school students to learn the history, music and culture of tap dancing, along with gaining basic dance skills from visiting performers.
For Bradley, hosting an event that allows tap dancers of all ages and skill levels to interact with, learn from and perform for others is one way to give back — and spark interest in the craft — in his hometown.
While Bradley’s tap talent (and strong bass voice) might have landed him a career anywhere in the country, he intentionally planted roots in the Flint area for himself; his wife, Sherry; and their four children because family connections are important to him.
So, what started as a two-week summer teaching job in 1988 at Flint’s Department of Parks and Recreation has evolved into Bradley’s passion.
“There are life lessons kids can learn from tap dancing, lessons that you would never imagine,” he said. “You learn about giving and sharing and being true to who you are.”
Tap dance is the great American dance, Bradley says, because it crosses racial, social, economic and religious lines.
He began dancing publicly when he was about 7 years old as “Glenda’s little brother,” tagging along while she walked to Flint community centers with her Hawaiian guitar and a desire to win neighborhood talent show competitions. While she strummed and plucked, Bradley duplicated dance steps he had memorized from “American Bandstand,” a then-popular afterschool television program that showcased teenagers dancing to Top 40 music.
But the Alabama State University visual arts graduate didn’t take his first formal dance lesson until he was 33. While on tour in Toronto with a theater group, Bradley paid for 13 private lessons with the popular Len Gibson.
“I am getting so much gratification from knowing that the meager investment I made with my money and time is now paying off,” Bradley said.
“I can see that seed growing into a branch — one that is full of kids with talent. I believe tap gives hope. It is a skill that can become a positive creative force in anyone’s world.” |