The reverberations of tomorrow’s elections will be as varied as they will be powerful. A new administration. A new House. A new Senate. New constitutional provisions in a half-dozen states. Ballot initiatives at the local level that affect libraries, schools, recreation, arts and culture. It is not one election – it is scores of elections, each carrying consequence, each reflecting the will of the people across countless dimensions of community life.

And yet, the turmoil we’ve experienced in the lead-up to the federal election promises to pale compared to the unrelenting uncertainty, emotional perturbation, and political atmospherics certain to attend the next cycle of national civic and political life. In whatever directions our new crop of federal and state elected officials move, and on whatever topics, some half of America will continue to feel aggrieved, alienated or otherwise disregarded.

What a foundation like Kresge can do to smooth the waters in any meaningful way is debatable and complex.

But what we can do – live according to our values – is neither debatable nor complex.

Stewardship. Respect. Creativity. Opportunity. Partnership. Equity. Words that can appear abstracted, but words that take on profound meaning when tethered to a commitment to action.

• Stewardship takes on the importance of using every foundation asset in ways that honor the founder’s aspiration to make the world a better place.
• Respect acknowledges the power of seeing the full humanity of all people.
• Creativity summons us to take risks, to break from ossified patterns of thought and practice, and to address the issues that most impede human progress.
• Opportunity underscores the imperative of breaking down the barriers to full participation by all Americans in this nation’s social, economic, and political life.
• Partnership embraces the reality that no contemporary challenge can be tackled by a single actor or sector.
• Equity roots all our work in overcoming the deeply entrenched policies, behaviors and attitudes that differentiate based on race, ethnicity or other characteristic of entire groups of people.

Nothing in the vicissitudes of the emergent political environment changes our commitment to these values. We will work as we have, understanding full well that we may need to stand our ground in unexpected ways, adapt our full box of tools to meet the particulars of a new reality, and provide our community partners with support different in kind or magnitude from what we’ve provided before now.

We’ve faced this situation before. Not just in 2016, with a new administration that evidenced little resonance with the foundation’s commitment to equity and opportunity in cities. But also in 2020 with another administration evincing deep resonance with that commitment. In both cases, we understood that the underlying fissures of polarization and division … the persistent attacks on racial equity … the heightened challenges of climate change … the impossibly difficult burdens facing people with few resources and fewer opportunities for economic mobility … all demanded that Kresge do everything in its power to fortify the people and organizations able to start in motion the flywheel of equitable, enduring, systemic change.

If you’ve known the Kresge of the past, you’ll recognize the Kresge of the future, regardless of the electoral outcomes. And if you don’t, please get to know us. We are all in this together.