Foundations Can Help Stabilize Cities, Kresge Foundation's Rapson Says

Foundations can create a “neutral and safe space” as a conduit for all sectors — business, government, nonprofits and academia — to come to agreement on a strategic direction for a community, Rapson said.

Foundations can ensure there is sophisticated data collection and analysis upon which to base new directions and progress towards goals. And they can provide “the political cover for a city to muster the imagination and intellectual energy necessary to assail prevailing assumptions and embedded inertias,” he said.