The Knight Foundation Announces Winners of its Cities Challenge

The foundation will award about $600,000 to 6 community-based projects.

Marissa Gawel/WDET

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is awarding $600,000 dollars to projects designed to increase opportunity and engagement in Detroit. The organization’s competition–called the Cities Challenge–invited residents from 32 areas around the country to pitch initiatives to make municipalities more successful. Program Director Katy Locker says many of the submissions involved connecting disjointed resources in Detroit.

“We actually have someone who submitted ‘LIVE Detroit’, who’s gonna take advantage of some other resources that are already built in Detroit, but really build a program that is about people trying to find their house in Detroit, and how do we help them throughout all neighborhoods of Detroit, not just downtown and midtown.”

-Katy Locker

Locker says six individuals received grants ranging between 80 and 170-thousand dollars to carry out projects in Detroit. She says the Knight Foundation will launch a second round of its Cities Challenge this fall. 

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