Rip Rapson

cultural and environmental conditions of urban life through six defined programs: arts and culture, education, environment, health, human services and community development in Kresge’s hometown of Detroit. In 2015, the foundation awarded more than $145 million in grants and investment commitments.

Nationally, Rapson has strengthened the philanthropic sector’s role through convening, collaborating and supplementing community development activities in cities across the country. In Detroit, Rapson and the foundation provided central support to the "Grand Bargain," an unprecedented partnership between the philanthropic community, city pensioners, the State of Michigan and the Detroit Institute of Arts, to propel the City of Detroit’s successful emergence from municipal bankruptcy in 2014.

A veteran of urban policy and philanthropic leadership, Rapson began his career as a legislative assistant to U.S. Rep. Don Fraser, and in that position oversaw development and passage of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act of 1976, which brought full wilderness protection to the million-acre lake country of northern Minnesota.

After attending law school, Rapson became increasingly interested in philanthropy’s role in urban and economic development while representing a number of Minnesota nonprofit organizations as a partner at Leonard, Street & Dienard in Minneapolis in the 1980s.