Social Investments Practice Summer Fellow

The Kresge Foundation is one of the top 20 private foundations in the United States and is metro Detroit’s largest foundation. With a $3.7 billion endowment and over 100 employees, we work to expand opportunities in America's cities for people with low incomes. We do this through grant making and social investing nationally in arts & culture, education, environment, health, human services, and community development in Detroit. Kresge’s Detroit Program is one of the foundation's signature efforts, reflecting our commitment to work in one of America's most challenging and dynamic cities and our belief in strategic, interdisciplinary, collective, and innovative approaches to urban revitalization.

Kresge’s Social Investment Practice works to expand opportunity, strengthen neighborhoods and improve quality of life in America’s cities by working to improve the flow of capital and the efficacy of financing in communities. Communities are built on systems, including a complex and often under-recognized and under-resourced community development finance system. Community finance providers, federal tax credit programs, nonprofit developers, community groups, local political leaders and philanthropy all must work together to align resources to provide the capital needed for schools, parks, affordable housing, small businesses and other community assets to become financially viable.

Kresge’s capital tools include cash program-related investments (PRIs) of debt, equity investments and deposits; unfunded guarantees, which work to reduce risk from investments, allowing other investors to sign on; and mission-related investments (MRIs) from Kresge’s corpus. In 2015, Kresge’s Board of Trustees approved a $350 million impact investing pool to be deployed by 2020, with a goal of leveraging $1 billion from other investors along the way. This commitment, which put approximately 10 percent of the foundation's corpus to work through impact investments, places Kresge among the top philanthropic leaders using these tools.

SIP’s recent investments have supported, among other projects: a fund to scale pay-for-performance transactions in the U.S.; access to capital for minority-led enterprises in Detroit, New Orleans and Memphis; a fund that helps home-owners save their homes from foreclosure; a breakthrough technology in the college success movement; the financial viability of a neighborhood anchor and private college in northwest Detroit; and the next generation of solar+storage solutions to mitigate the effects of climate change on low-income communities.

Kresge is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action employer and strongly encourages applications from people of color, persons with disabilities, women, and LGBT applicants. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability or other applicable legally protected characteristics.