About Us

What is Seeds of Promise?

Seeds of Promise is a 501c3 non-profit organization. We are a place-based urban community improvement initiative located in the Southeast community of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Seeds of Promise empower those who live in this urban neighborhood to direct their own strategy. We are a “Bottom-Up” rather than “Top Down.” Our future is not about reducing poverty, it is about empowering urban residents to build personal and neighborhood prosperity through producing measurable impacts. It is just good business!

Seeds of Promise is designed to serve three levels of solving the “poverty problem”:

  1. A local demonstration center for how to build a self-sustaining solution where urban residents govern and direct their personal and neighborhood improvement.
  2. An opportunity for others to experience the dynamic nature of empowering self-dependence.
  3. The operations hub for a private sector-based strategy to rapidly replicate this solution within and beyond Michigan.

The strategy is fundamentally simple:

Empower

urban residents to transform their underdeveloped personal and neighborhood assets into increased market leverage-able competencies by solving the root cause of priority problems.

Help

them to build a continuous improvement based system “on the run” that supports their ingenuity-based self-initiative.

Enable

supportive non-profit, public and private organizations to produce increased measurable impact by integrating service delivery within the residents’ strategy.

Support

the residents building a self-sustaining strategy enabling them to control their destiny and leverage the market. After all, it’s just “good business”.

Our Mission

At Seeds of Promise our mission is to transform the neighborhood by promoting collaboration and community stakeholder partnerships, applying sustainable development best practices, building local resident leadership and trust, deep listening to community voices, and meeting the needs and wants expressed by the neighborhood.

Our Vision

The vision that we have for our target neighborhood is a sustainable community that fully meets the needs of its current and future stakeholders measured by a high quality of life, abundant servant leadership, and equal education opportunity. Its compassionate leaders will continuously seek to create a balance in the community’s economic vitality, social responsibility, and environmental stewardship.

What Success Looks Like

Our youth are succeeding in learning and life

Families are functioning effectively with the resources needed

Adults are engaged in livable wage employment

Residents are committed to a wellness-based lifestyle

Our neighborhoods are safe to live, work and play

Residents have access to education attainment opportunities and skills-based training

Residents and families have access to affordable housing