Who We Are

 How We Work

 Rose for Detroit Blog

 Grantee Toolbox

 Contact Us

      

All of our work is focused on improving meaningful graduation rates, so Detroit kids are prepared for college, career, and life.

Feb. 7, 2014

Mapping the city's blight

From Brightmoor pilot to citywide surveying

Detroit blight removal: Behind the scenes with Motor City Mapping

By now, you've likely heard about the many efforts to understand and tackle Detroit's blight issue. It's an issue at the heart of our work, because blight is unfortunately a serious problem in the neighborhoods where we work. We want Detroit kids to grow up, live and learn in environments free of blight and the safety issues it presents. Since last summer, we've been working with a number of organizations to find solutions to this problem. It started with a pilot project, with deep neighborhood resident involvement in Brightmoor. It has grown to be a federally-backed initiative to map all of the blight in the city. See the story of how this work began with a simple idea and the promise of where it's going in our latest blog post and video.

Bridge Magazine, which is part of a new Detroit Journalism Cooperative, posted an interview this week with our President & CEO Tonya Allen. In it, Allen talks about how the city's bankruptcy plays in our strategic thinking about how and where we make our investments. Our commitment to children in Detroit dates back more than 50 years, and that hasn't changed. But we are always rethinking the most effective ways to achieve our goals. Read the full interview here.

Other news item of note:

• Read a profile of Dennis Talbert, interim board chair of the Brightmoor Community Center in BLAC Detroit.
• Fast Company wrote a piece on five new mayors of large cities, including comments from Allen on Detroit's Mike Duggan. 
• The Detroit News ran an important series of stories on child deaths in Detroit, including interviews with our Vice President of Program & Policy Kristen McDonald.
• Skillman Foundation Trustee Mary Kramer, publisher of Crain's Detroit Business, wrote a column asking adults to put kids first in education.   
• Detroit teen featured in TeenNick for his work on Hugs Not Bullets and Grads Not Inmates initiatives with Neighborhood Service Organization. Congratulations DeQuan O'Neal!  
• Detroit Police Chief James Craig shares his views about the culture of violence in the city in the Michigan Chronicle.
• Glenda Price, a co-chair of the Blight Task Force, explains how she sees blight impacting education outcomes in Detroit. 

Want to let our readers know about an upcoming event? Or an opportunity, like a grant deadline or training? Email the info to  kjahnke@skillman.org and we'll include it here.

• The deadline to apply for youth development funding through our RFQ is Friday, Feb. 14. Please see the questions and answers about the applying process and funding requirements and access the downloadable RFQ here.   
• Call for sessions! The Grantmakers for Children Youth and Families (GCYF) Conference is coming to Detroit in October, and there is an open call now for sessions. The conference theme is "Strong Places, Strong People:
  Strengthening Grantmakers as Partners in Change. Find guidelines for submitting a session idea here.  
• The Bank of America Charitable Foundation is seeking talented, community oriented, hard working and rising and graduating students from the Tri county area of Wayne, Oakland and Macomb to be part of the 2014 class of Student Leaders.      
• Clark Park Coalition is preparing now for its 3rd Annual Dinner and Winter Carnival on Feb. 28 and March 1. Find more information here.   
• Know a great youth volunteer? Nominate him for the Kohl's Cares Scholarship Program, which will award up to $10,000 in scholarships. Nominees can be between the ages of 6 and 18. Learn more here.