The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation has announced $3.2 million in grants to be used for bettering the arts community in Flint, Michigan.
The city is perhaps most famous for being the hometown of controversial filmmaker Michael Moore, who frequently shoots pieces of his documentaries there. The town’s history has been a checkered one, with the city reaching a peak population of approximately 200,000 in 1960 thanks to its location near the then-booming General Motors factory. It was then that the Flint Cultural Center, the benefactor of the Mott Foundation’s grant, was founded.
Since the 1960s, Flint has suffered from depopulation as the American auto industry has dwindled, only recently beginning to recover – but the city’s cultural and artistic touchstones have weathered every difficulty. Now, thanks to the Mott Foundation’s generous grants, as well as recent investments in Flint’s institutions of higher learning and three major GM facilities, the arts scene will continue to thrive.
The Flint Cultural Center was built entirely with private funds and draws visitors from more than half of Michigan’s 83 counties. It encompasses the Flint Institute of Arts and the Flint Institute of Music, which will receive Portions of the Mott Foundation’s $3.2 million in grants. The FIA will receive $1.25 million, and the FIM, including the Flint School of Performing Arts, the Flint Youth Orchestra and the Flint Youth Theatre, will receive $650,000.
The remaining $1.35 million will go to the Flint Cultural Center Corporation, a nonprofit organization established in 1992, which supports more than half a dozen independent Cultural Center partners.
"Mott’s funding for the various institutions that make up the Flint Cultural Center is part of a larger foundation effort to support Flint’s assets as the city continues to pursue its promise as a healthy, vital place to live and do business," said William S. White, president and CEO of the Mott Foundation.
