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Ask what you can do for your state – an interview with Rishi Jaitly

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Rishi Jaitly, President and Founder of Michigan Corps, was able to take time out of his busy day to chat briefly with our Communication Specialist, Amanda Bate about his vision for the future of Michigan.

BATE: Why is Michigan Emerging important to you?

JAITLY: The values of Michigan Corps and Michigan Emerging are quite aligned. In a region where there seems to be a conference just about every week, Michigan Emerging frames the issue in a realistic way. ‘Emerging’ is the right way to think about Michigan: change will require patience but it’s now clear to me that we will get there. The conference confirms what I am seeing: that Michigan is in fact full of people who are thinking big, taking risks, and are open-minded about how to pursue social and economic change.

BATE: What is currently happening with Michigan Corps?

JAITLY: At the moment, we’re in the middle of a Growth Capital Campaign that will allow Michigan Corps well to make its inaugural, high-impact investments in 2011.

The vision is for Michigan Corps to be the primary engine providing national capital to the most outstanding social entrepreneurs and social enterprises in the state. The heart of our insight is that there are individuals and institutions nationwide that would invest in Michigan’s economic ecosystem – if only there was a structure via which to do it.

If Newark, New Jersey can raise $100 million of national capital from the Founder of Facebook for its school system, why can’t Detroit? Why can’t Michigan? After all, this is America’s state. With Michigan Corps, we are building an organization that will channel strategic national capital back to those non-profit organizations transforming the state’s economic ecosystem.

Our Growth Capital Campaign is the first formal effort since our public launch to raise capital from across the country, and from a new generation of investors within the state.

Of course, it’s not just about the money. But financial capital is a sign of the intellectual and human capital that can follow. That’s why Michigan Corps will connect our portfolio organizations with pro-bono consulting, marketing, technology, legal and other business services from vendors around the country; this will allow them to operate with even more efficacy and impact. That’s why we’re engaging high schools around the state with a program that allows young people to intellectually participate in the conversation about their state’s future. And that’s why we’ll be recruiting the country’s best social entrepreneurs and social enterprises to Michigan so that we, too, can benefit from their interventions.

We’re honored that our initial start-up capital came from such a prominent group of national leaders. And we’ve been humbled by the response we’ve received from the public. We hope to play a significant role in the state’s transformation for years to come.

BAT: What is your story?

JAITLY: I was born and raised in the New York City area but have lived all over the place: New York; Connecticut; New Jersey; D.C.; California; Asia; Virginia; and now, Michigan. It’s created a bit of an identity crisis, to say the least. After graduating from Princeton and amassing some work experience in politics and government, my first exposure to the non-profit sector came with a group called College Summit. College Summit is the premier national organization helping low-income high schools and districts increase their college-enrollment rates. Later, I spent several years at Google where I worked on government affairs, philanthropy, and communications issues worldwide. After a career working on global and national issues, I’m thrilled to now be able to do meaningful, local work here in Michigan.

BATE: Favorite thing about Michigan

JAITLY: My wife is a Detroit native who was raised in Southeast Michigan. Before moving to Michigan, we’d of course visit her family often. I was always drawn to the sense of community and humility among Michigan’s people; something about it has always struck me and still does today. Just weeks after the birth of our beautiful baby daughter, we happened upon this question: why isn’t there a strategic, sophisticated way to channel national capital to Michigan’s economic ecosystem? We decided to move to Michigan and build the organization ourselves. Enough heads started nodding that a nice idea quickly became a promising organization. And over these past few months, I’ve discovered that there is in fact something about Michigan’s values and people that make it a self-evident place to invest in.”