Ford Motor City Fund Launches New $50,000 Grant To Promote City Growth

DETROIT (WWJ) - The Ford Motor City Fund is putting up some cash to help change conditions in Detroit's neighborhoods.

The Ford Resource and Engagement Center is awarding prizes totaling $50,000 in it first ever Accelerator Boot Camp. The organization will be handing two separate $25,000 to whoever has the best idea to create social or economic mobility in Detroit's neighborhoods.

"We are looking for our entrepreneurs, non-profits, for-profits that really have a solution for social mobility or economic mobility specifically for neighborhoods," Shawn Wilson of the Ford Motor Company Fund told WWJ's Vickie Thomas. "There's just this amazing opportunity to really help elevate the neighborhoods."

The deadline to apply is 5 p.m. this Friday, July 14.

Program organizers are looking for innovative technologies, platforms, and other models that improve financial outcomes and prepare Detroit youth and families for financial success. Solutions may address entrepreneurship, workforce readiness, career pathway education, financial literacy or social and emotional learning.

Wilson said the automaker has a long history of social mobility and this program will piggyback off what Henry Ford originally did a long time ago.

"If you think about what Henry Ford did with the $5 a day wage regardless of race that was a really great example of social mobility because when you're paying a good wage to people it allows them to live in better homes and ultimately have a better life," Wilson said.

More information on the Accelerator Boot Camp can be found at this website.