Ford family on path to help other families: Here's how

If you want to know what Lisa Vanderzee Ford and her family talk about at the dinner table when they get together, you’d be spot on if you answered: Ford and the auto industry.

Well, at least part of the time. It’s understandable given her husband, Bill Ford, is executive chair of the company started by Henry Ford, his great-grandfather in 1908. Two of the couple’s four children are involved in the family business (William Clay “Will” Ford III is now general manager of Ford Performance and Alexandra Ford English is on the company’s board). Their eldest daughter, Ellie Ford, is a therapist and their youngest son, Nick Ford, is finishing his MBA at Harvard in May.

Lisa Ford has never worked for Ford, though she’s heard talk of it her entire life as her dad, John Vanderzee, was a Ford executive who went on to become CEO of the J. Walter Thompson ad agency — one of the largest in America and which once had Ford as its signature client; JWT was acquired by WWP Group in 1987.

I’d talked to John Vanderzee more than a few times in the 1980s and 1990s about autos and the advertising industry as he always had a riveting view of things.

I’ve also been around Lisa Ford at events like the Detroit Auto Show Charity Preview AutoGlow at Ford Field, which she and her husband and other leaders got involved with to raise money for children’s charities. But we’d never really talked much beyond exchanging pleasantries.

That changed this week when we had a conversation about something near and dear to her and her husband as they, along with the Detroit-based Children's Foundation, announced plans to raise at least $10 million to set up permanent endowments for 10 nonprofits geared to helping young people in metro Detroit.

That effort is tied to Ford's multimillion-dollar investment in a 30-acre tech hub in Corktown, including the refurbishing of the Michigan Central Station, which had been shuttered 30 years. It’s roaring back to life with innovation and mobility as part of its new mission and officially opens on June 6.

Bill Ford has been the driver behind its epic return as he decided to take the shuttered building and work with others to transform it and the area.

I first talked to Bill Ford at the reopening of the Rouge factory tours in Dearborn in 2004 (they had ended in the 1980s as a cost-saving move). We’ve talked numerous times since and he will headline the Detroit Free Press' upcoming Breakfast Club speakers forum on April 17 before a sold-out audience at the Daxton Hotel in Birmingham as he shares thoughts about Detroit, EVs, the family business and more. I’ll serve as emcee.

If autos is in Bill and Lisa Ford's DNA, so, too, is helping the community, particularly young people. It’s been an integral part of their lives. Though both grew up in Grosse Pointe, they didn’t meet until they were college students at Princeton and married after graduation (she is three years his junior).

“The station is all about the future and so, too, this new endowment program,” she said. “We decided to focus on organizations helping children."

She said it was critical to provide the endowment to organizations and let them decide where it was most needed. That’s unlike many endowments that provide funds with the understanding of where specifically the money will be used.

Andrew Stein, executive director of the Children’s Foundation, has worked closely with Lisa and Bill Ford as they assembled a steering committee of 15 business leaders and a cabinet of 40 others to offer help and ideas in creating the program and also finding dollars.

“It’s like a little army,” said Lisa Ford. “When we talk about equity and trust-based philanthropy and what it looks like, we are creating these endowments that will belong to the organization.”

Stein explained endowments are the lifeline of many larger institutions, universities and hospitals but rarely do smaller community organizations have any endowment.

He said many smaller groups helping young people are existing year to year and need to continually raise money to keep up. These endowments are intended to help these 10 nonprofits have a stronger future.

The Fords, with Stein, are expected to announce the total amount raised and the process for interested youth groups to apply for them on June 6. They’ll have a new website up by then with information.

As we wound down our conversation, Lisa Ford reinforced that the couple’s focus is and has been on Detroit and providing a stronger backdrop to organizations helping young people.

And that, too, is fodder at the Ford family dinner table as the upcoming generation is watching their parents and learning about the importance of making a difference.

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Contact Carol Cain: 248-355-7126 or clcain@cbs.com. She is senior producer/host of “Michigan Matters,” which airs 5:30 a.m. Sundays on CBS Detroit and noon Sundays on Detroit 50 WKBD. See See Denise Ilitch, Rocky Raczkowski, Rochester Hills Mayor Bryan Barnett, Matt Grossmann, Tonya Schuitmaker and Rudy Hobbs on this Sunday’s show. Michigan Matters can also be found on those stations’ listings on FUBO, Pluto TV, Youtube.com. It is streamed 9 p.m. weeknights.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Children's Foundation remains close to Ford family's heart