Calling all partners

Kids matter here. That’s been our mantra the past 20 months, since we launched our ambitious Good Neighborhoods program. Kids matter everywhere, of course, but for too long neighborhoods outside the downtown core of Detroit have gotten the short end of the stick. We want to change that, and I believe we are well on our way.

Skillman Foundation Chair Stephen E. Ewing

The Skillman Foundation has been working on behalf of Detroit children for nearly 50 years. Thanks to a generous gift from our founder, Rose Skillman, we haven been a constructive force for Detroit children for nearly half a century. Our current long-term focus, newly tightened as a result of a comprehensive strategic planning process, is aligned around our two signature program areas: Good Schools and Good Neighborhoods. A third focus, our Good Opportunities program, is designed to support big projects that advance our Good Schools and Good Neighborhoods grantmaking.

I’d like to recognize and thank Skillman Foundation Trustee Lillian Bauder, my friend and predecessor as chair, for her role in shaping the Foundation’s transition to a more community-based and collaborative organization. The Foundation has undergone some significant changes over the past few years, and Lillian and Carol Goss have done a marvelous job managing that change. The Foundation, though, cannot do this work alone. As confident as I am in the Foundation staff and its partners to make our grantmaking programs a shining success, I also believe there are untapped resources out there that can help us transform our neighborhoods and schools into vibrant, supportive, and successful places for children. We welcome partners.

The Skillman Foundation is a learning organization. We know we have a better chance of making a difference for kids if we can learn from others, identify change-making models that work, and bring the best of those ideas here. Our focus is Detroit, but we are learning important lessons about how to create lasting change for children from other parts of the country.

Trustees and senior staff have visited with and learned from colleagues at High Tech High, a terrific school in San Diego, the Harlem Children’s Zone, a comprehensive place-based project in Harlem, and the KIPP schools in Houston. We are eager to apply some of those lessons here. Foundation Trustees and staff are committed to improving outcomes for Detroit’s children. Our core grantmaking programs are the vehicles through which we are making that commitment a reality.