In 2008, the Pfizer Foundation presented AAACF with a one-time departing gift of $1 million - which was to be invested in our community by the end of 2009.  

Pfizer's 2007 announcement that it would be closing its Ann Arbor facility came as a huge blow for many in our community - with the nonprofit sector being especially hard hit.  In recent years, Pfizer had provided as much as $5 million a year to support civic and arts organizations, health and human service agencies, and educational institutions. 

Throughout 2008 and 2009, we held a series of conversations and meetings with hundreds of community members across all sectors of our region to seek their guidance.  We sought to explore the entire continuum of options, gauge community needs and priorities, and ultimately arrive at a strategy to invest Pfizer's gift in ways that promised significant  impact and lasting change.

AAACF's Board of Trustees established a strategy that focused on three priorities and an open grant process that would solicit "Big Ideas" from local nonprofits.

In 2009, AAACF invested Pfizer's $1 million gift  in the following community initiatives:

Three Strategic Priorities:

• Ypsilanti Renewal
  Ypsilanti Freighthouse Restoration - $101,300
  WISD - New Tech High School  $300,000
• Early Childhood Development
  Washtenaw Success by 6 - $196,700
• Arts and Culture
  The Arts Alliance - $200,000

Big Idea Grants

• Food Gatherer's Big Community Harvest
  $92,000 to fund a three-tiered collaborative effort that provides locally grown, healthy food to our region's lowest income households.
• Ecology Center
  $58,000 to fund a collaborative effort to develop a program that provides affordable ways for local homeowners and area businesses to improve energy efficiency and seek renewable energy sources.
• SPARK-East
  $50,000 to support innovation-based economic development in greater Ypsilanti.