1970s

The Foundation intensified our focus on higher education as a key part of our hometown grantmaking with the announcement in 1972 of $5 million to help relocate the University of Michigan-Flint from the campus of Mott Community College to the city center. The 73-acre, riverfront campus now is home to approximately 6,000 students. Through 2022, the Foundation granted nearly $233 million in support of the UM-Flint, MCC, Baker College, Kettering University and Michigan State University.

The launch of the University of Michigan-Flint campus coincided with the Mott Foundation’s decision to implement a formal grantmaking program to support the revitalization of downtown Flint. These efforts continued through the 1980s, when we pursued several large economic development projects, including a hotel and entertainment and shopping venues. While not all of these projects were successful, they laid the groundwork for future revitalization efforts that would begin in the new millennium.

Charles Stewart Mott passed away just after midnight on February 18, 1973.

He once described the Mott Foundation as the realization of the purpose of his life. Because he had the vision to create a foundation that could adapt to a changing world and new challenges, that purpose lives on.

William S. White was working as a management consultant with Bruce Payne & Associates of New York City when Harding Mott asked him to come to the Mott Foundation in 1968 to help position the organization for growth. White became a consultant to the Foundation in 1969. In 1971, he became vice president and secretary of the Foundation and was elected to the board of trustees. He successively was elected to the positions of president and chief administrative officer in 1976 and CEO in 1979. In 1988, he was named chairman of Mott’s board of trustees. Under White’s leadership, the Foundation significantly expanded our national and international grantmaking.

From 1976 through 1985, Mott made grants totaling almost $6.5 million to strengthen and expand community policing. It is a strategy that builds upon an old approach: police officers walking the beat and getting to know people in the communities they serve. In our home community, we granted approximately $3 million to the Flint Police Department over a six-year period beginning in 1977 to establish an experimental neighborhood foot patrol program. To assess the effectiveness of the foot patrol, we funded two evaluations conducted by Michigan State University, which led the university to seek funding to establish a National Neighborhood Foot Patrol Center (now the National Center for Community Policing) in 1982.

Mott’s program aimed at strengthening Historically Black Colleges and Universities was launched in 1978 with a $1 million grant to the United Negro College Fund. The Foundation recognized HBCUs as vital to the education of historically underserved people, as well as to the preparation of black leaders nationally and globally. Through 2020, Mott contributed nearly $40.7 million in support of HBCUs.

Beginning in 1979 and lasting for more than three decades, Mott’s Intermediary Support Organization program provided seed grants and technical assistance to local community groups serving low-income neighborhoods across the country. In all, 239 grants totaling more than $42.5 million were made to grassroots organizations that worked with residents to identify common values, concerns and goals, and to increase civic participation.

A longtime supporter of community foundations, Mott began making grants in 1979 to develop and strengthen the field in the United States. Our efforts soon expanded internationally through challenge grants in the United Kingdom, resources for community foundation support organizations in Central and Eastern Europe, and leadership training for practitioners from 63 countries. Mott’s support, which totaled more than $221 million through 2022, has played a role in expanding the field from fewer than 300 community foundations in 1979 to more than 1,800 around the world today.