In support of diverse youth and emergent leadership, the foundation is funding efforts that prepare, support and build pipelines for school-age children, youth and emergent leaders to shape local politics and communities. As part of that, it’s looking at different types of leadership development programs and fellowship opportunities that they can either bring to Detroit or co-create with other organizations, Gaston said.
An example of a recent grant in that funding area went to YouthTank Detroit, a startup incubator for high school student-led businesses that was created by youth, for youth.
“We can start earlier, we believe, when it comes to exposing children and young adults — in middle school, high school and college — to career pathways in sectors where maybe they don’t have visibility or access to them,” Gaston said.
A lot of the work that’s been done around development has focused on after-school programs (and) summer camps, Gaston said. “What we also want to be able to give young adults is exposure to different career paths and professional opportunities” in three specific industries: philanthropy, high-growth, high-tech companies and public service.
Not surprisingly, given co-founder Dug Song’s tech background, the second core focus for the foundation is supporting inclusive technology and high-tech, high-growth entrepreneurship. That includes prioritizing what tech entrepreneurs need and making sure that the ecosystem is equitable and accessible to people with or without technical backgrounds, Gaston said.
“The first thing is ensuring that we de-mystify tech for regular citizens within the region,” Gaston said.
The foundation will also make grants to ensure nonprofits are not vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks, a growing issue highlighted by Crain’s last year. The goal is to make sure nonprofits can make investments in their computers and software, Gaston said.
The foundation recently convened a set of roundtables with tech entrepreneurs in Detroit to help it identify where the gaps are. “We’ll be doubling down on that with our investments over the next couple of years,” she said, through grants and impact investments.
Its third funding bucket, transformative social justice and activism, will direct support to efforts around civic engagement, grassroots organizing and culture and movement-building efforts that shift narratives and disrupt the status quo.
“A lot of our peers really do that work, and we’re looking forward to building partnerships there,” Gaston said.
The $30 million foundation has moved $2 million in grants and impact investments to nearly 50 nonprofits over the past year, Gaston said, noting it plans to give out about 6 percent of its total assets in the foundation and other, undisclosed funds or vehicles the Songs are using to accomplish their charitable goals.
“Right now, these are our priorities, but we always want to keep some margin to be responsive and to change and to do more,” Gaston said.
“We don’t come to the work…having a lot of hubris and feeling like ‘Oh, there’s work that only we can do.’ A lot of this is…let’s see if we’re filling the gap,” she added. “Let’s do this work needed. Let’s see if we can gain some traction, and yeah, maybe we will hear feedback that the best use that we could be is to give out our money as quickly and as fast as possible. We don’t want to be static.”
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