Kaiwan “Kai” Bowman loves being in service to his community by connecting people with new opportunities. As the chief operating officer of the Metro Detroit Black Business Alliance, he works to close the racial wealth gap for Black entrepreneurs.

I’ve always considered it a blessing that ever since I graduated from U-M, I’ve worked in municipal or nonprofit mission-based work… I really considered it quite an honor to be able to take everything that I’ve done within my career to bring me to this point.”

~ Meagan Dunn

As AliReda Jeafar approaches graduation at UM-Dearborn, he has a full-time job with the City of Detroit that he loves. But it took a reassessment of goals and a life detour to find a career path he’s passionate about.

“There is so much structurally that holds back businesses owned by people of color, and the network I am a part of is hoping to turn that upside down.”
~ Lily Hamburger, Ross School alumna

Crescendo was founded by alum Damien Crutcher in 2013. It’s an after-school program for children ages 5 to 18 that develops music and dance programming to promote artistic excellence and character building. Crescendo has worked with roughly 125 students in Detroit and also has partnerships with institutions like U-M and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Leon Pryor, a University of Michigan alum and a senior game producer at Meta, got involved in robotics competitions when his son competed in a FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition in 2018. Since then, he’s led two youth robotics teams to success.

David Merritt, a U-M alum is the co-founder of Give Merit. It invests in the youth to help them excel in their schools and bring the dream of college into reality. He started this work 12 years ago and has supported nearly 200 students through Merit’s FATE Program. It promises each qualifying FATE student up to $8,000 in college scholarships.

Brilliant Detroit runs a host of programs out of houses-turned-community hubs in 14 neighborhoods across the city. On a mission to create “kid success” neighborhoods, the nonprofit offers tutoring, GED preparation and testing, health and fitness classes, nutrition information, reading activities, and social-emotional and mental health services for children and their families. It was co-founded by two U-M alums in 2016 and has partnered with the university from the beginning.

Detroit senior citizens and other underserved populations in the city have access to low-cost high-quality eye care, thanks to a nonprofit founded earlier this year.