Borgman is pleased to share with Ford fans in Grand Rapids and West Michigan that the Ford Foundation is opening a new office in the Motor City. After moving from Detroit, MI to New York City back in 1953, the Ford Foundation was better-equipped to advance human welfare both within our country and across the developing world.Now, after 64 years, the Ford Foundation is opening a new office in Detroit and has hired Kevin Ryan, a Detroit native, as the office's program officer. This article by Chad Livengood and published on Crain's Detroit Business tells more about the new location, Kevin Ryan, and what this could mean for Detroit's future.
Here is an excerpt from the article:
The Ford Foundation is establishing its first presence in Detroit since leaving the Motor City in 1953 as it ramps up a major initiative to invest in affordable housing in the city where it was founded 81 years ago by Edsel Ford.The New York-based international foundation announced Wednesday it has hired Detroit native Kevin Ryan from the New York Foundation to be its new Detroit-based program officer.
“[Ryan] will be working from Detroit and working with grantee partners there so we don’t have to have staff parachute in and out," Ford Foundation President Darren Walker told Crain's. “I think it’s important because having someone close to the ground, someone working in the city, is a more effective way to do our work."
Ryan comes to Ford Foundation after 14 years at the New York Foundation, where he managed a portfolio of grants for New York City community organizations.
Walker's decision to plant an employee in Detroit is the latest effort he's made to rebuild the foundation's ties to the city where its endowment was first generated from the estates of auto baron Henry Ford and his son, Edsel, who chartered the foundation in 1936.
In June 2015, Walker brought the foundation's annual board meeting to Detroit, the first since 1948, following the Ford Foundation's unprecedented $125 million contribution to the "grand bargain" deal that settled Detroit's historic bankruptcy and shielded the city's art collection from creditors.
The Ford Foundation's Detroit program officer will be charged with overseeing the $15 million in grants the foundation is making in Detroit annually, the most of any U.S. city, Walker said.
That total is in addition to its $8.5 million yearly payment to the bankruptcy "grand bargain" fund used to boost Detroit's municipal pension funds and shield assets of the Detroit Institute of Arts from ever being sold.
You can read the full article by visiting CrainsDetroit.com, or learn more about the Ford Foundation by visiting their website.