The Jewish Federation is publicly pushing CommunityNEXT, a new initiative to help staunch Metro Detroit's brain drain.
"At the core, this amounts to two things: Retaining young talent and to use as a test pilot for organizations that want to tackle this issue," says Jordan Wolfe, director of CommunityNEXT.
The program, which has six figures' worth of funding from private donors, is focusing on young people between the ages of 22 and 28 years old. The idea is to keep these educated young professionals in Metro Detroit and to also attract others who are interested in moving back to the area.
It's doing this with a number of smaller programs, such as an intramural sports league that expects to have 400 participants in two basketball teams and a kickball league this year. It's also planning an after-work event that will mix young professionals from a number of different backgrounds and cultures.
The CommunityNEXT program is also setting up office space in Bloomfield Hills for young entrepreneurs and offering a free year of rent. It's also connecting young professionals with internships and jobs through several existing programs.
"We're not trying to reinvent the wheel," Wolfe says. "We're looking at how best to collaborate with existing programs."
The six-month-old program will continue through the rest of this year as part of its pilot phase. Then the Jewish Federation (the local Metro Detroit chapter is one of the top 5 in the nation) will reassess and see where the program goes next.
Source: Jordan Wolfe, director of CommunityNEXT
Writer: Jon Zemke
Enjoy this story?
Sign up for free solutions-based reporting in your inbox each week.