Advancing an environmentally healthy and culturally vibrant metropolitan Detroit and a flourishing Great Lakes ecosystem.
What We Fund
The work of our grantees mobilizes our investments, and we are humbled by their impact which makes our region sustainable, just, vibrant, and flourishing.
We like to say that everyone lives on waterfront property
Learn more about the Great Lakes watersheds or download a watershed map.
Tenets of Lasting Change
The foundation believes the following tenets are necessary to effect lasting change:
Sustainability. Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of future generations, by harmonizing environmental, economic, and social interests.
Positive role for business. Collaborating with business as a force for good in society and for sustainability.
Stewardship. Cultivating resident, business, nonprofit, and government responsibility and accountability for the community’s environmental and cultural assets.
Leadership. Supporting energetic, visionary champions who have a broad base of support.
Community support: Ensuring that efforts are relevant to and supported by the communities they affect.
Collaboration. Working with a broad range of stakeholders—community members, business, nonprofits, government, academia, and philanthropy—to advance shared goals.
Fairness and justice. The opportunity for equal participation by all is an essential element of sustainability.
Fred & Barbara
Fred and Barbara Erb’s desire to create a better world for both current and future generations, paired with their successful family business experience, their shared love of the outdoors, and their deep sense of fairness and justice, naturally led them to view their philanthropy through the lens of sustainability – development that harmonizes economic, environmental and social interests, meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future.