Dollars a year raised by the Kansas City event Detroit modeled this on. The goal here is a permanent version.
When budgets get tight, the arts go first. Every kid who ever lost a music class or watched a theater program quietly disappear knows the pattern. Detroit is trying to break it, and the plan is not a one-time check. It is a permanent endowment built to pay for youth arts education in the city year after year, whether or not anyone is looking.
The vehicle is The Coney, a new celebrity variety show created by actor, comedian, and Detroit Creativity Project founder Marc Evan Jackson in partnership with the Children's Foundation of Michigan. Named after the city's most famous plate of food, presented by Rocket, it lands as a homecoming weekend on September 25 and 26, 2026, ending in a performance at the Detroit Opera House.
The host committee reads like a Detroit reunion. Kristen Bell, Dax Shepard, J.K. Simmons, Tim Meadows, Sam Richardson, and Diona Reasonover are all coming home alongside Jackson for a night of music, stand-up, celebrity Motown karaoke, and an on-stage Coney hot dog eating contest. It is loud and it is a little ridiculous on purpose. The point underneath it is not.
The arts thrive when funding is thoughtful, informed, steady, and permanent.
That line is the whole thesis. Jackson has spent more than a decade on this through the Detroit Creativity Project, the nonprofit he helped found that brings free improv theater education to thousands of Detroit students, teaching confidence and collaboration through performance. The Coney scales that instinct into money that outlasts any single program or budget year.
The model is borrowed and proven. Detroit's organizers point directly to The Big Slick in Kansas City, now in its seventeenth year, which pulls in more than 4 million dollars annually for kids in that city. The bet is that Detroit, with its own deep bench of homegrown talent, can build the same kind of annual tradition here.
Two things happen with the money. The first is immediate. Funds go straight to work this year across four fronts: arts-focused youth-serving organizations, teaching artists who bring professional mentorship into classrooms, art-based experiences like travel, competition, exhibition, and performance, and arts infrastructure, meaning the supplies, instruments, uniforms, and equipment that programs actually run on. The second is the long game: establishing the Endowed Fund for Youth Arts, a permanent endowment held at the Children's Foundation of Michigan that will hand out annual grants to youth-serving programs in the city for good.
For the organizations doing this work on the ground, the part that matters is the grant. So here is how it will work, and how to be ready.
How to Apply · For Youth-Serving Organizations
- Who can applyOrganizations serving Detroit youth that provide arts education and creative youth development opportunities.
- What it fundsArts-focused youth organizations, teaching artists, art-based experiences (travel, competition, exhibition, performance), and arts infrastructure (supplies, instruments, uniforms, technical equipment).
- Window statusNot open yet. The application window launches after the September 26 event. The fund is not accepting funding inquiries or Letters of Interest before then.
- Step 1, prepareReview the funding priorities on The Coney's Cause page, in the Immediate Impact section, to see exactly what the fund supports.
- Step 2, reviewOn the Children's Foundation Grant Seekers page, under How to Apply, go to Step 4 for the Grant Application Requirements, the SMART Objectives Table, and the Planned Participant Table.
- Step 3, stay readySign up for the Children's Foundation of Michigan newsletter to be first to know when the window officially opens.
- TimelineGrants are expected to be awarded to organizations by the end of 2026.
Details confirmed from the Children's Foundation of Michigan and The Coney official pages, September 2026. The application window opens after the September 26 event. Always confirm current requirements and dates on the official pages before submitting.
If you are not running a program but still want in, there are three ways to move the number. Tickets to the September 26 show are on sale through Ticketmaster and the event site. Organizations and businesses can come on as sponsors. And anyone can donate directly to the fund. Links are below.
How to Support the Fund
- Buy ticketsThe September 26 performance at the Detroit Opera House, 8pm, 1526 Broadway St.
- Become a sponsorOrganizations and businesses can back the weekend directly.
- DonateGive straight to youth arts education in Detroit through the event's giving page.
ANF Take: A celebrity fundraiser is easy to wave off as a good-time gala, and this one is built to be a good time. But strip the karaoke away and what is left is the least glamorous, most important idea in youth work: permanent money. Detroit is not asking its next generation of artists to hope the budget survives the next cut. It is trying to remove the question. If The Coney becomes what Big Slick became in Kansas City, the kid taking a free improv class or borrowing a school trumpet this fall is the story we cover in ten years. The near future of Detroit creativity does not start on a stage. It starts with a fund that does not run out.
The show is September 26. The grant window opens right after. If you run a program, get your paperwork ready now.
