The Kresge Foundation

And really what I have found, not only in my time as a mayor, but way before that, my time in the police department as a police chief, is you get to recognize when you're in a leadership position in government, how diverse we are in terms of not just ethnicity, but needs.

Welcome to Pathbreakers, a podcast from the Kresge Foundation.

This season, we're asking, who has the power to change a city?

We're talking with people who are reshaping the way things work and getting into how they make that happen.

And we're looking at four cities in particular where Kresge does a lot of work.

Memphis, New Orleans, Fresno, and of course our home city, Detroit, Michigan.

In each of these places, we're going to start at City Hall and talk with the mayor.

Then we'll head out into the community and talk with some of the people Kresge calls pathbreakers, people making big changes in unconventional ways.

Basically, I feel 72 now, so I've had a lot of life and I've spent time in the private sector, public sector, government service.

I spent nearly 20 years on the board of the Kresge Foundation, one of the largest US foundations.

I started our social investment practice.

Really, for me, the pivot point was in 2005 when my son died from an overdose of heroin.

We are trying to develop a national lived experience advisory group, and we have spent the past couple years building the framework for that and developing a charter.

We recently received an $80,000 grant from the Kresge Foundation, and we are now working to actually stand that council up.

So we have a committee that is working on developing application materials, onboarding and training, and all the things that go into lifting up the voices of the people that we serve.

And I have been very proud to have been involved in that.

And I will say we're not the only entity.

There are other philanthropies that they also come to the table, and we work very closely, whether it's Kresge or Davidson Foundation, Community Foundation of Southeast Michigan, Knight Foundation, Ralph C. Wilson.

You know, we all play a part and we all always communicate with one another to make sure that, you know, nobody's stepping on anybody's toes, but we're all coming to the table and supporting an investment.

So it really sounds like being a supercharger to make the, a more full vision of what the residents wanted happen.

And then it's all driven by residents.

Right.

And I want to talk about that because I think that's a misnomer in the public, right? They think when, say, a Kresge comes by or a Ralph C.

Wilson or, in your case, Gilbert, of course, there's a very big name attached to it, right? That is correct.

So that's about $880,000 in this instance.

And that program, w- which was fascinating to me, is kind of the product of foundations, of, of nonprofits, in this case Kresge Foundation and several others helping out to contribute that.

It was created specifically for this purpose.

So i- it's, it's the first time this program's being used to finance something in St. Louis.