Last Monday, August 21, the City Commission voted 5-2 to approve a new Foundation, which will become the steward of an eventual 500 million dollar endowment. Here's a few updates on the newly-formed
Kalamazoo Foundation for Excellence, and the fund:
The foundation board consists of
fifteen individuals, of which nine minimum must be residents of the City. The
$70.3 million dollars of seed money for this endowment was privately
donated by two local philanthropists, William Johnston and William Parfet in 2016. Johnston is married to Ronda Stryker, granddaughter of the founder of Stryker Corp. Their estimated net worth is $3.7 billion. Parfet is great-grandson of the founder of The Upjohn Co. and retired CEO of MPI Research. So basically, two descendants of the families that founded the two most profitable businesses in the history of the region. It is claimed that the money comes with no strings attached, but some remain skeptical.
The first official meeting for the Foundation was held this past Friday, August 25. At the meeting, the bylaws and calendar were reviewed and adopted, and some negotiations with the Kalamazoo Community Foundation were conducted. The City still needs to raise a lot of money to make the fund self-sustaining, however, some dollars from this donation have already been put to use on several neighborhood improvements, including lead pipe removals, community programs, and neighborhood cleanup efforts. Loftier goals involve using the funds to support a city-wide property tax reduction and methods of combatting the city's homelessness generational poverty challenges (of which there are a lot), as well as provide tens of millions for new city projects and programs.
It should be interesting to see how effectively this money gets channeled, and hopefully it leads to some exciting developments and improvements in the City, and soon. Some useful pages for further reference: