Opinion: Ford Foundation Comes Home With Bets on Detroit

The Ford Foundation’s $125-million contribution to a fund to help protect the Detroit Institute of Arts collection and buttress city pensions highlights the New York-based philanthropy’s return to its Motor City roots, a Detroit News columnist writes.

Business writer Daniel Howes calls Ford the “linchpin” of the proposed $330-million fund backed by several prominent foundations. He says Ford’s involvement in addressing the city’s bankruptcy crisis “culminates a seven-year homecoming” for the nation’s second-largest foundation, which has beefed up investments in Detroit and Michigan causes since 2006 after decades of largely directing its resources elsewhere.

The foundation was established in Detroit in 1936 by the auto-making Fords. It is no longer affiliated with the family or the company, but the city remains “very special in our narrative,” Ford President Darren Walker told Mr. Howes. “Detroit represents this huge opportunity, probably the greatest opportunity in the country for revitalization.”

Read a Chronicle of Philanthropy article about the Detroit art and pension fund and its implications for the interplay between philanthropy and government.