Ten grant makers announced today they plan to spend $125 million to help residents of Flint, Mich., recover from the harm they have suffered from the city’s water crisis.
The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, based in Flint, spearheaded the collaboration and committed the largest sum: up to $50 million during the first year and up to $50 million more over the following four years.
“First and foremost, I felt that it was important to give the people in Flint a sense of hope,” said Ridgway White, president of the foundation. “You can’t let an entire population go by the wayside.”
Joining Mott are five other Michigan funds:
- The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, with $5 million over the first year for children’s education, health, and community engagement
- The Kresge Foundation, with up to $2.5 million for nonprofits, health, human services, and community development and engagement
- The Hagerman Foundation, with up to $1 million over the first year for nonprofits, economic revitalization, and children’s health and wellness
- The Ruth Mott Foundation, with $1 million for children, adults, and residents’ priorities
- The Skillman Foundation, with $500,000 immediately and up to $1.5 million over the next three years for children’s health, nutrition, literacy, and civic capacity
Three grant makers not based in the state are providing $1 million apiece: the Carnegie Corporation of New York, Ford Foundation, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
“The situation in Flint is appalling, and as an American, I am ashamed of what happened in that city,” said Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation. He said Ford felt “compelled to act.”
Rounding out the commitment is a pledge from the FlintNOW Foundation, formed in response to the crisis by Tom Gores, a financier who owns the Detroit Pistons. The fund has promised $10 million.
Leaders at the Community Foundation of Greater Flint, which has been handling the local and national outpouring of philanthropic support for the city, hailed the announcement.
“We’re thrilled to know the foundation community is coming together to make some long-term commitments to our Flint community and the recovery to the water crisis,” said Kathi Horton, president of the community foundation. “It’s especially meaningful that foundations are willing to look past geographical boundaries and see a need to respond to a community trying to re-create itself.”
Water Testing
The money from the 10 foundations will focus on addressing problems caused by the crisis, including the potential damage that lead in the water did to young children’s ability to learn and the devastation the local economy has felt as people no longer wanted to live in Flint and businesses no longer wanted to operate there.
Perhaps the most pressing concern is ensuring that all Flint residents have access to safe drinking water. To that end, the foundations will support water testing independent from government agencies.
The money will also go toward local nonprofits, early-education programs for children under age 7, economic-recovery efforts, and advocacy drives that enlist community residents to hold governments accountable.
Ms. Horton said she is “particularly pleased” that the grant will provide a dollar-for-dollar match of up to $5 million on donations made through the end of 2016 to the community foundation’s Flint Child Health & Development Fund. Established in January, the fund aims to provide 20 years of support for Flint children exposed to lead. It has already raised $6 million.
Group Effort
The process of bringing the national grant makers together began in January after the government declared a state of emergency in Flint, Mr. White said. That’s when the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation hosted a call with other grant makers to figure out what role big philanthropy could play in helping the city.
Rip Rapson, president of the Kresge Foundation, said Mott brought grant makers together and outlined where action was needed, including health care, early education, and economic development.
Mr. Rapson said the group of foundations hoped to apply lessons they learned in Detroit in 2013, when a consortium of 10 grant makers put $366 million toward saving the Detroit Institute of Arts and shoring up the city’s pension system. That deal, known as the “grand bargain,” is widely credited with helping the Motor City emerge from bankruptcy.
“The willingness of the philanthropic community to throw in their effort collectively is a learned muscle,” he said. “I’m not so sure this would have happened five or six years ago.”
Each foundation will be responsible for making its own grants, Mr. White said.
Mr. Rapson said all of the foundations were trying to make grants to causes in which they have expertise but that it would be a challenge for Flint, like anyplace that receives a windfall of philanthropic money, to set up the best structures for ensuring it is spent well. “Unless there is the ability to absorb capital and deploy it thoughtfully and effectively over time, all the funds in the world are going to be suboptimal,” he said.”
No Substitute for Government
The announcement comes more than a year after the first national media reports about lead and other contaminants poisoning Flint’s water and months after local fundraising efforts established the Flint Child Health & Development Fund.
But Ms. Horton doesn’t think national foundations have been slow to respond.
“When you’re dealing with a disaster, it takes a while to get organized,” she said. “I think of it as them coming together as early as it makes sense to say, ‘We’re committed to the long haul.’ "
She noted that government officials are still struggling to determine their response to the crisis.
“For a while we were hoping they’d be organized and stand and deliver what they’re going to do. We realized we couldn’t wait forever for that,” Ms. Horton said. “The legislative process takes way too long.”
In February, Mr. White told The Chronicle that foundations would have a better idea of how to support Flint residents after the government response became clearer.
“While planning, we haven’t wanted to step in too soon and let government off the hook,” he said. “It’s important they respond where they can, where it’s appropriate.”
The foundation commitments are not a “bailout of the government,” he said, but a way to provide for people who would suffer from public-service gaps.
