The Cody Rouge Initiative (CRI), a public-private collaboration to support a resident-led vision to ensure Detroit’s Cody Rouge neighborhood is a place where children and families thrive, is providing $1.4 million in funding over two years to City Year Detroit.
The Cody Rouge Initiative (CRI), a public-private collaboration to support a resident-led vision to ensure Detroit’s Cody Rouge neighborhood is a place where children and families thrive, is providing $1.4 million in funding over two years to City Year Detroit. The education-focused nonprofit brings AmeriCorps volunteers into schools to build strong “near-peer” relationships with students.
This latest grant from the CRI will enable City Year Detroit to introduce AmeriCorps members to Cody High School, where they will provide one-on-one and small-group tutoring to students and organize school-wide events and afterschool programs.
CRI was formed in 2015 and is a partnership among organizations and funders including, Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance, Trinity Health, DTE Energy, General Motors, Quicken Loans and The Skillman Foundation. Additional community partners include the City of Detroit Planning Department and Detroit Public Schools Community District.
While the partners have long supported the Detroit community, CRI posed an opportunity to combine and coordinate resources within a target area and under a shared, resident-led vision. “We were all intrigued by how much further we could go by working together, leveraging our areas of expertise and investment in a concentrated geography," said Punita Thurman, vice president of program and strategy, The Skillman Foundation. "Though we have differing priorities, we’re united in our collective commitment to Detroit and its children.”
In the nearly five years since CRI formed, the partners have strengthened their alignment and focus. They’ve built a shared understanding of community needs and how each funder can contribute most powerfully. The Initiative has three focus areas: investing in education and career preparation for area youth, and investing in neighborhood infrastructure.
“Collaborative funding initiatives require a good deal of time to be spent on the onset to listen to and understand the needs and desires of those the funding is meant to support as well as the philanthropic strategies of each funder involved,” Thurman said.
“Many of us were in the midst of rethinking our grantmaking strategies to account for new opportunities and priorities as Detroit began changing in monumental ways, from an improved economy and influx of new investment, to strengthened city and school management. This resulted in the Initiative’s early investments being more complementary rather than combined. These investments created important momentum,” Thurman added.
While the Initiative was developing, so was the context in which it works:
The Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance expanded its capacity to coordinate resident action, supported with grant funding from the Cody Rouge Initiative.
Detroit Public Schools Community District advised its community partners on how they can best support the District’s school improvement plans and now has a dedicated staff member that coordinate’s partnerships and program offerings with external organizations at Cody High School, this position being supported by Cody Rouge Initiative.
The City of Detroit’s Strategic Neighborhood Fund is in the process of developing a child-centered, youth-informed neighborhood development plan, supported in part by the Cody Rouge Initiative.
CRI partners work collaboratively to set the vision and goals, continually reflect and refine on its strategies and execution of the work, and share accountability for contributing toward the target outcomes. A dedicated project manager was brought on in 2018 to support CRI.
“It wasn’t easy in the beginning. You have to find your way as a collective. We evolved from separate work in one geographic neighborhood to one common set of goals and objectives with specific milestones and metrics for the work. We’ve developed a regular cadence of meetings, and a structure for when and how we meet to tension that work and ensure we are moving the needle,” said Nancy Moody, vice president of public affairs at DTE Energy.
“Collective action is necessary to creating real and lasting change. We have seen the impact of harnessing our collective influence and aligning behind a community’s needs. We look forward to sharing further insights in the years to come,” added Thurman.
Want More?
Learn more about The Cody Rouge Initiative.
Connect with the Cody Rouge Community Action Alliance.
Check out Model D Voices of Cody Rouge.
