It Takes a Village…

We quickly realized that this project is very ambitious and there is so much that we don’t know or have experience with. What we do have is passion, drive, many years of business experience and a love of building relationships with special people.

So we know that it’s going to take lots of learning, lots of patience and collaboration with many people along the way. We’ve never rehabbed a large property; we’ve never built a school, an artist incubator, a retreat center or a culinary kitchen. So in these first couple of months we’ve done a lot of listening, taken a lot of notes, and been introduced to some wonderful people.

It’s important for us to stay organized, divide and conquer in our tasks and prioritize what’s most important. First was identifying and securing a location, and we’ve done that. Lot’s of due diligence to do there, but we’re well on our way. We even found out that the seller of one of the properties grew up attending the church we are buying and taught classes in the gym of the school!  

As with any new organization, we need to establish an organizational structure, an entity name and a brand. We knew we were going to organize as a 501c3, and we sought out a legal advisory firm in Detroit that can help. When we met over lunch with Ilya Smith of Clark Hill, we knew we had a match. She was moved by our vision, her husband is a school principal in Detroit, and her firm has a large education practice. While we could tell there was much to learn about the legal process in front of us, we were most impressed by Ilya’s personal interest in our project. 

We had early on settled on our name. It would be based on the Japanese art of Kintsugi, a technique of taking a broken bowl or piece of jewelry and repairing it with gold so that the resulting piece was more beautiful than the original. It became a powerful metaphor for life that both of us connected with. We also thought it would resonate with the audiences we are planning to serve, including the kids at the school, the staff we work with, and all of our other stakeholders. 

So naturally, we needed a logo, a brand and a website. We interviewed a number of firms, but settled on a contact we made with the head of design for the non-profit charity: water, whose work we had always been impressed with. Kristina Brumby has turned out to be a delight to work with and her talent is unmistakable. When she read our vision, it almost brought her to tears, and she has been incredibly thoughtful and patient working with us.

To start to learn more about education, we looked no further than Hamsa’s friend Amanda Rosman, who leads a non-profit charter school in Detroit called the Boggs School. She’s been incredibly helpful sharing everything from state regulations, considerations for square footage and classroom size, budgeting and fundraising. She’s been kind enough to join the board of the Kintsugi Village!

We know it is critical to build relationships with the City of Detroit and the local neighborhood we plan to serve. So we started with our friend Ray Waters, CEO of the Detroit Development Fund, who has been a loyal supporter of the Small Giants Community for years. We loved sharing our new vision and he’s already started making some introductions for us! Another great contact is Josh Elling, the CEO of East Jefferson Inc. East Jefferson is directly connected to much of the development in the east side of Detroit, is very familiar with our location and sees many possibilities for collaboration. Josh has already been great to work with.

We know we’re just getting started. But so far, we’re thrilled at the response we’re getting.  As we have done our whole careers, we’re going to lead with purpose and values, and will continue to focus on building relationships that are meaningful and genuine in everything we do.

If our journey inspires you and you want to get involved in some way, shape or form – drop a note and let us know! We’d love to chat!