all righty back here in Michigan giving you a live look at Corktown and of course Michigan Central Station the Ford motor company has rehab they're getting ready for the grand opening on June 6th and as part of that Transportation uh transformation the Ford family has teamed up with the Children's Foundation to start a new $10 million endowment Initiative for 10 Children's Charities in metro Detroit I had the opportunity just a few days ago to speak with Lisa Ford and Children's Foundation CEO A
ndrew Stein about this new effort and who it will impact we're at new laab at Michigan Central just across the street from the train station here in Corktown of course the amazing renovation that Ford motor company has undertaken the grand opening is going to be in June we're going to be here for that for sure but we are talking about a big announcement this week that is going to impact so many young people across our entire region and it is the Michigan Central Station children's endowment camp
aign it's going to be supporting 10 nonprofits and it's also a partnership with the children foundation so joining me now is Lisa Ford you're chairing this campaign yes and also Andrew Stein for the Sheldon Foundation it's great to see both of you thank you I mean and sitting in this place right now the sunshine coming in this has really been such an amazing project oh yeah it's it's started a while ago and it continues this uh new Lab at Michigan Central is the Innovative Hub right now all righ
t let's go ahead and start about uh you know this endowment and the project where did this come from Lisa the conversation surround ing the necessity of it right well I have to say it's uh it happened pretty quickly we decided that we wanted to make even more of an impact um with the opening of the train station across the way and uh what better impact than with children so um endowment became the obvious uh tool that we wanted to embellish and bring back to life in the sense of it's not used th
at often in child uh youth facing organizations so the combination of the opening children endowment off we were running and uh Andrew here is the professional so he understands what all the details are yeah I find that partnership and Andrew when you talk about the endowment and the kind of money that you can start infusing into these nonprofits for that base for you know in perpetuity is really important that's right and you know we were approached about this project uh late last year big cred
it to to Lisa and Bill and and steering committee that's been helping us you know Lisa came to us and said we want to do something that's Innovative and impactful and Lasting just like that train station and we're thinking about endowment I said nobody talks about Endowment for you know youth serving organizations it's something that's typically for universities and hospitals and cultural institutions but by focusing focusing this campaign on endowment what we're what we're doing is we're helpin
g 10 organizations be here in this community as long as Michigan Central and new labber here all right so talk a little bit about what you're trying to achieve in terms of monetarily and how the match will go well our goal is $10 million at least $10 million so that is um doable we thought that was doable in the short period of time that we had to do it it also allows us to pick uh choose uh a 10 Charities and divide it 10 ways so the scheme is um Andrew go ahead sure so um we're going to run a
process after the station opens on June 6th we're going to really turn it over to the community to help inform what of those 10 organizations that are that are anchors and need to be here in perpetuity they'll have an endowment of $500,000 seated for them and then at the Children's Foundation we're going to work with them over the next two years and really coach them on how to leverage the fact that they've got this asset now raise money into the endowment that'll be matched dollar for dooll and
the goal is for each organization over the next 2 years to have a $1.5 million endowment which will start to produce for them annually about $70,000 in unrestricted use it as you see fit to fulfill your mission Revenue yeah and that's a game changer for these organizations and Lisa really makes me think about relationships because once you start and you say well we've invested this much and then you start talking to others and saying well if there's already this much invested in I can match it
here it's all about having those conversations that's exactly right and they're going to learn all about that right here in Michigan Central because part of the training and the coaching they'll get will be able to uh mingle with those that are also raising money for their startups all the creativity that's going on here and the Innovation it it it follows that they will have a cohort that can drop in here and learn about what others are doing so we hope that ripple effect will continue just pas
t these 10 organizations look you've already been working on this for months but then when the news kind of came out this week what's the reaction been that You' some of the calls you've been getting oh everybody is like wow that's that's really cool and and people thought uh how are you doing that and I said well I'm not doing it this is a group effort this we have a wonderful steering committee of about 15 people we have a we realized we needed even more people to help us so we have a cabinet
of about 40 to 50 people and everybody is opening doors raising money their way and um encoura in and extremely uh enthusiastic support yeah and when you talk about so many people being involved in this and Andrew when you think about Community input which is what Michigan Central has been all about in terms of development and and the rehab of it and talking to the community and what they want to see here um we're looking for 10 nonprofit organizations how do you choose what's the timeline like
so that that's the work happening right now we've engaged a lot of the foundations that have supported this effort are helping us finalize the El ibility criteria and the application and all of that we'll run that process through the summer after the station opens but I've heard a lot from my peers that lead youth serving organizations in the community excitement for for anyone who who leads a youth serving organization is looking at this and is wondering is this for me am I eligible that'll all
be made clear over the next few months but our hope is that you know we get a a broad interest from organizations and are able to to make this something that can benefit organizations that are larger but also some of our smaller organizations that really do need the type of support to be here for the long term yeah and Lisa we talked so much about Innovation I mean being where we are right now in new lab and and help for businesses and entrepreneurs but to be able to give back to the children o
f the area across the area for years and years to come it's just huge children are our future I mean that is the bottom line here and to invest in children and have an impact now and as it goes on endowments don't end um it it feels really good I'm sure it does all right well we can't wait to see what's next Lisa Ford thanks so much for joining us and the foundation good to see both of you we will celebrate the grand opening in uh just a couple of months absolutely good all right yeah June 6 I c
an't believe it's already it's already here now if you're interested in learning more about uh the Michigan Central Station children's endowment campaign and how to donate or get involved just go to our website I click on a try.com we'll have the all the information for you there
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