In this installment of CMF Community Voices, Rip Rapson, president and CEO of The Kresge Foundation, shares his reflections on the foundation’s centennial celebrations, where the foundation has been and looks to the future of philanthropy which “demands that we continue to adapt and innovate, ensuring our actions are rooted in equity, opportunity and justice.”
CMF Community Voices features a series of conversations and insights from leaders across our community of philanthropy. This curated collection of blogs and Q&As lifts up inspiring voices from changemakers providing reflections in the areas of Equity, People, Practice and Policy, with equity at the center.
By Rip Rapson, President and CEO of The Kresge Foundation
A centennial provides a vantage point to examine the past as well as to refine and perhaps reimagine a path forward. Reaching this milestone this year, allows us a moment to appreciate our history—our accomplishments, milestones, and even some of our unrealized aspirations. This retrospection also involves honoring the intertwined history of Detroit, the city with which Kresge has grown and evolved.
To that end, the foundation held two significant events in Detroit on June 11, 100 years to the day after our incorporation in 1924.
The first was our Detroit and the American City Symposium featuring a hefty roster of ingenious thought leaders – local and national – to grapple with the Motor City’s challenges, strength and promise … and their universal relevance.
The second was a celebration at the Detroit Institute of Arts that spotlighted musicians and artists from Detroit, Mayor Mike Duggan, our Board President Cecilia Muñoz and one surprise guest who needed no introduction — President Barack Obama.
It was the honor of a lifetime to sit with President Obama for an onstage fireside chat and speak about the regeneration and importance of Detroit, the urgency of continuing to center cities in our nation’s ongoing quest for equity and justice, and about the future of bridging differences and taking calculated risk to expand opportunities for all.
To the philanthropic community, Obama had a message. Keep taking risks commensurate with the issues of the day. At Kresge, we believe that philanthropy is at its best when it shape-shifts, when it responds to changing circumstances by taking risks, using all of the tools from its toolbox and applying them while maintaining a strong ground wire into community. When I asked Obama to reflect on that premise, his reply was simple and affirmational: “Keep on doing what you’re doing.”
“What you just described is how philanthropy should operate,” Obama said. “And what I think has been exciting about Kresge is it hasn't always played it safe. because it does have to adapt to new circumstances and new opportunities. I think that too often philanthropies are cautious. In some cases, this is out of good motives – we want to be good stewards of the money that's been bequeathed to us. We want to make sure that it's not wasted. But over time, [a model of giving can] become stale. It becomes brittle. It funds the same things over and over again. What Kresge has been willing to do is to say, we'll take some calculated risks, and we're going to use these resources to jumpstart people coming together to change their surroundings. We need more of that.”
Speaking earlier in the day at the Symposium, I noted that when I joined Kresge in 2006, the foundation primarily focused on creating brick-and-mortar institutions in Detroit through capital challenge grants. However, the ensuing years brought a convergence of challenges – the Great Recession, housing foreclosure crisis, automotive bankruptcies, and political corruption. These adversities highlighted the inadequacy of relying solely on a single tool to address the velocity and magnitude of hardship affecting our city.
We had to venture beyond our familiar and safe approaches and confront the turbulence head-on. We adopted a fractal perspective, recognizing that challenges are multifaceted and require diverse responses. We diversified our tools understanding that we possess a multifaceted arsenal of possible ways to contribute to change beyond making grants.
We embraced risk, acknowledging that our risk appetite must match the magnitude of the challenge. We narrowed our focus with greater intentionality toward people, places and ideas often overlooked by the economy and politics.
Starting in the transformative period of 2008-09, we began crystallizing our approach into six distinct philanthropic roles:
Convening: Utilizing our perceived fairness to bring community members together to address complex issues.
Capacity Building: Investing in local capacities to ensure meaningful participation in decision-making and investment.
Risk Absorption: Taking on the initial layer of risk in critical transactions to attract public and private sector involvement.
Public Spaces Investment: Signaling to private markets the long-term stability and health of communities through public space investments.
Guiding Federal Resources: Steering federal and philanthropic resources into the city to reset its trajectory.
Stewarding Civic Ties: Contributing to the stewardship of civic and cultural ties that bind communities.
These roles, applied over different circumstances in the past 15 years, have become more than theoretical constructs. We have relied on them during economic downturns, neighborhood revitalization, public health dislocations from COVID-19, and the push for racial justice post-George Floyd. They have become the channels through which philanthropy overcomes the inertias of public and private sectors, elevates community organization, and infuses equity and justice into decision-making.
Deploying these roles in combination proves most potent. For instance, by setting the stage for early childhood development systems and investing in community capacity, we create the ability to pursue projects that build long-term health and social cohesion. Absorbing the first layer of risk in elusive housing strategies invites public and private sector capital and initiates a cycle of more balanced investment.
It's, of course, very gratifying to have someone of President Obama’s stature say you’re on the right track. And while we plan to keep doing work in this way at Kresge, we’re also considering how to move forward into even better alignment with our values and with community aspirations. That was what our speakers at the Symposium dissected. To that end, there are a few themes we’re continuing to unpack this centennial year: repair, abundance and the interaction of climate and health.
Creating a "culture of repair," as articulated by writer Aria Florant, involves reckoning, acknowledgment, accountability and redress. This approach is vital for ensuring justice and inclusion, particularly as we consider the opportunity to repair the harm caused by past injustices, such as the I-375 project that disrupted Detroit’s Black communities in the early 1960s.
PolicyLink founder Angela Glover Blackwell’s insights on equity and abundance emphasized the need to use federal dollars innovatively, ensuring they reach low-income communities and advance equity rather than defaulting to expedient channels. We’re listening.
And we’re looking deeply at how the climate crisis intersects with civil rights, social justice, public health and economic justice. Addressing climate change locally and investing in interconnected approaches is essential for building healthier, more resilient communities.
Our centennial reflections—which continue with additional gatherings this calendar year—underscore the importance of a holistic, integrated approach to philanthropy. By combining diverse tools and strategies, we can create a civic agenda that defines and achieves community goals, advancing the common good. The future demands that we continue to adapt and innovate, ensuring our actions are rooted in equity, opportunity and justice.
As we move forward, the insights from these and other convenings will guide us in constructing a responsive, equitable and accountable civic framework, reinforcing our commitment to a vibrant, inclusive future for Detroit and beyond.
Want more?
Through January 2025, the Detroit Historical Museum is hosting a Kresge Foundation exhibit, giving visitors the opportunity to experience the foundation's history firsthand. Learn more.
The foundation will continue to share stories and news on its centennial website throughout the year, including a historical timeline of the foundation’s impact over the last 100 years. Explore the website.
