The President and CEO of Kresge Foundation and philanthropist Rip Rapson will be the featured speaker at public breakfast at Charleston’s Four Points Sheraton Hotel Thursday hosted by Philanthropy West Virginia and The Valley Foundation“>Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation.

The Kresge Foundation is a national foundation that aims to expand opportunities for vulnerable people living in American cities. That’s not what motivates people to make their communities better.”

Rapson helped Detroit emerge from municipal bankruptcy in 2014 when he and the Kresge Foundation initiated a partnership known as the “Grand Bargain” among the philanthropic community, city pensioners, the State of Michigan and the Detroit Institute of Arts. “In West Virginia I suspect, much like Detroit, people have left and chosen to raise their families elsewhere. But what’s so striking is how often those folks come home.”

Even though Rapson is not a West Virginia native, he is impressed by the spirit and toughness of people here, even through the hardest of times.

“I don’t pretend to know enough the West Virginia experience, but when I look at the resilience of this state, it’s just stunning,” he said.

In Charleston, Rapson will showcase similarities between West Virginia and Michigan, and how philanthropy solved challenges in Michigan which can be duplicated here.

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