Austin Past & Future Fund

08/21/2026

Our friend Dan Austin is being honored with the Eleanor Josaitis Unsung Hero Shining Light award on October 1. Let's celebrate his big day by racking up another $50K in the fund that means so much to him. The fund's mission: Keep HistoricDetroit.org going and provide scholarships to Detroit youth who want to give back to our city. https://austinpastfuturefund.org/giving

08/10/2026

Beyond raising money for Detroit youth, our other main message is for younger people to get screened for cancer. Dan was diagnosed with stage 4 at age 43, and is just one out of thousands of people coming down with cancer at younger and younger ages. The New York Times looks at this troubling trend and hopefully gives you yet another reason to get screened sooner than later.

For years, cancer has been seen as a disease people mostly get when...

07/30/2026

Many thanks to Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib for helping us raise money for educational scholarships for Detroit youth and to keep HistoricDetroit.org running as a free community resource.
Will you join Rashida in helping us reach our goal of raising $100,000 before the end of the year? All donations are tax-deductible and will go a long way to preserving Detroit's past while investing in its future. For information or to make a gift, please go to www.austinfund.org.

07/23/2026

We'd like to thank the Free Press and the Shining Light Award team for honoring Dan Austin with the Eleanor Josaitis Unsung Hero Award. To even be mentioned in the same breath as such an incredible Detroit icon is humbling to say the least. We vow to try to live up to her legacy by helping as many Detroit youth as we can.

Dan Austin, founder of HistoricDetroit.org, is recipient of the 2026 Eleanor Josaitis Unsung Hero Award, part of the Shining Light Awards.

06/25/2026

On Saturday, City Bird is hosting the North Cass Summer Flea, featuring 50 vendors on Canfield and Second. We will have boxes of records for sale there with all sales benefitting the Austin Past & Future Fund.

Swing by for deals that help a great cause and grow your collection at the same time - and be sure to shop for all sorts of amazing finds at the flea.

06/05/2026

We'd like to thank all of our donors and Detroit luminaries who have shared their support with us since our launch three months ago. We have made incredible progress toward our goal of $100,000, but we still have a way to go to ensure that we can offer meaningful scholarships to Detroit youth and to keep HistoricDetroit.org running as a free community resource in perpetuity. Will you consider helping us by making a tax-deductible donation at www.austinfund.org? It would mean a lot to help us preserve the past while investing in Detroit's future.

05/27/2026

We are incredibly grateful for all who have helped support our mission, but we are still a long way from hitting our fund-raising goal if we are to give scholarships of meaningful amounts to Detroit youth. ... Can we rely on you to help us help Detroit's future?

All donations are 100% tax-deductible and can be made at www.austinfund.org.

Thank you!

05/17/2026

We’ve been asked: Why start this fund now?

The simple answer is this — we believe in building legacy intentionally.

Too often, foundations are created after someone is gone.
We wanted to do something different.

We wanted to shape this together.

To define the values.
To create the framework carefully.
To ensure the work reflects what matters most and benefits those who need it most.

The Austin Past & Future Fund isn’t about looking back.
It’s about taking everything that’s been learned and asking ... How do we invest forward?

Will you join us in our work to preserve Detroit's past while investing in its future? Learn more or make a deductible donation at

Honoring Detroit’s past. Supporting Detroit’s future. Inspired by Dan Austin’s passion for Detroit, we are building a living legacy that is dedicated to preserving Detroit’s history while investing in the youth who will lead the city into the future. Your tax-deductible donations keep Histor...

05/08/2026

A huge thank you to Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib for helping us raise money for educational scholarships for Detroit youth and to keep HistoricDetroit.org running as a free community resource.

Will you join Rashida in helping us reach our goal of raising $100,000 before the end of the year? All donations are tax-deductible and will go a long way to preserving Detroit's past while investing in its future. For information or to make a gift, please go to www.austinfund.org.

05/03/2026

We set out with a goal of raising $5,000 last night at the Austin Past & Future Fund Fund-raiser w/Motor City Soul Club.

Detroit, you absolutely blew us away and our goal away. Thanks to you, we raised $10,360 for scholarships for Detroit youth and for keeping HistoricDetroit.org up and running as a free community resource.

That's five years of keeping the website up and running. That's several scholarships. In one night. Just imagine what we can accomplish as we keep going. How much good we can do for our city, together.

On behalf of the fund, we cannot thank you enough for believing in us and our mission, for all your support and for your incredible generosity.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

If you have photos from last night's event, we'd love for you to share them. It was a magical night.

Photo by Arleen Bailey and Vince Keenan