Knight Foundation Gives a $2.5 Million Boost to Detroit’s Small Businesses
The Detroit Development Fund will use Knight Foundation grant to help minority-owned businesses in the city.
The Knight Foundation is giving $2.5 million to help support small businesses in Detroit. The grant, which was converted from a loan given to the Detroit Development Fund, will be used to develop minority-owned businesses in the city. Fund president Ray Waters says the organization started in 2002 with $1 million in funding.
“Since then we’ve been very fortunate to have raised in the neighborhood of $42 million and have lent, over the last seven or eight years, $35 million into the Detroit market.”
Ray Waters, President of the Detroit Development Fund
Waters says the Knight Foundation’s conversion of the loan to a grant helped raise an additional $6.5 million from the Kellogg and Chase Foundations. He says these funds will also be used to rehab commercial properties and single-family homes.
