We Are
The Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan is a multifaceted, comprehensive philanthropic organization that creates permanent, positive change to enhance the quality of life throughout our seven-county service area.
We are grantmakers:
Our grantmaking supports nonprofits of all sizes in diverse sectors including arts and culture, children and youth, economic development, health and human services, and the environment.
We are conveners:
Our focused, multiyear initiatives — as well as some targeted, endowed funds — aim to create change around specific issues that impact people throughout our region and, in some cases, the entire state of Michigan.
We are philanthropic partners:
Our Donor Services team works with donors to understand their charitable goals and create personalized strategies for giving, utilizing a wide variety of investment options. Our deep relationships and knowledge of the local communities we serve set us apart from traditional investment firms.
We are community capital:
Our flexible, endowed funds give us the ability to nimbly support organizations on the frontline of evolving opportunities and unforeseen crises in the community, today and for generations to come.
We Are
Grantmakers
$103M
Granted in 2022
5,140
Grants
7
Counties served
Our grantmaking supports nonprofits of all sizes in diverse sectors including arts and culture, children and youth, economic development, health and human services, and the environment. Creating positive change requires both passion and measured thought, so we work hard to find proposals that encompass both.
We make strategic investments in community partners that work to enhance the quality of life and create enduring, equitable solutions to complex problems throughout southeast Michigan. These are the community leaders who are closest to the issues, who wake up early and go to bed late, who wipe away tears and inspire others to think bigger, who put their heart and soul into all they do to make our shared world a better place.
Our grantee partners paint the murals, plant the flowers, repair the trails, make the music, uplift the youth and support the caregivers. They protect our health, nurture new businesses, tell our stories, fight for justice and so much more. They are the heartbeat of southeast Michigan.
Highlight: COMMUNITY,
ONE SLAP SHOT AT A TIME
Eighth-grader Franca Grassi grabs a hockey stick, dons a jersey and heads over to a net set up on the flower-lined concourse of Roosevelt Park outside Michigan Central Station in Detroit. A gaggle of young players follows her lead, and soon the air is ringing with laughter and slap shots.
The weekly drop-in street hockey league, which is held in the rapidly changing Corktown neighborhood, allows kids of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds to connect and exercise in a safe, outdoor space. A microgrant of $6,310 from the Michigan Central/Church Street Fund at the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, which was developed in close collaboration with the community, covered the cost of equipment.
The Michigan Central/Church Street Fund was created with a $750,000 contribution from Ford Motor Co. and $100,000 from developer Oxford Perennial. The fund will continue to invest in community projects as the neighborhoods of Corktown, North Corktown and Hubbard Richard develop. The fund’s value is expected to increase over time, providing support in perpetuity for projects like the street hockey league.
Players meet up around dinnertime, so food and drinks are provided to make it easier for families to participate. Parents gather and chat around a shady picnic table after their kids grab a slice of pizza and dash off to play.
“Everybody’s become a lot closer and it’s helped people find new friends,” says Franca, who helped draft her block club’s grant proposal.
Her advice to other kids who want to make a change in their community? “If you see a shot, you have to take it.”
Watch the video - Supporting a youth street hockey league in Detroit's Corktown neighborhood
We Are
Conveners
The Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan believes collaboration is a powerful way to drive change.
That’s why we spearhead strategic, multiyear initiatives with other foundations and funders to make measurable impacts on thorny issues that impact people throughout our region — and, in some cases, the entire state of Michigan.
Some of these initiatives are needed for specific time periods to address urgent crises. Others last longer or become permanently endowed — meaning they’re funded in perpetuity — when an issue is more systemic and requires long-term support and leadership.
Our initiatives and targeted, endowed funds often place the foundation in the role of convener, bringing leading regional organizations together around a unified strategy. The Community Foundation also spearheads this type of collaborative work through storytelling focused on community engagement and narrative change.
Highlight: RE-ENVISIONING
MICHIGAN JUSTICE
“Thirty years ago, I was going in and out of the state prison, working with (incarcerated) women who were pregnant. As a mother, I could not fathom the idea that anyone would take my child from me. A lot of the circumstances I found that the women were in, I myself had been in some similar circumstances. But because of the color of my skin and my privilege, I didn’t end up behind bars. This really impacted me,” recalls Dr. Sheryl Kubiak, founding director of the Wayne State University Center for Behavioral Health and Justice. “Understanding how the common themes of substance use, trauma and poverty complicated their lives, it didn’t feel like their stories were being heard.”
Today, Kubiak works with the Wayne State center to provide expertise, evaluation, support, training and technical assistance to keep residents out of the criminal legal system. Grantmaking from the Michigan Justice Fund, an initiative of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, helps support her team’s work.
The Michigan Justice Fund initiative was established in 2020 to advance effective, equitable justice policies. National and local foundations had sought a way to come together and impact these critical, systemic issues. The Community Foundation provided a home for this changemaking work and has managed more than $20 million in gifts to the fund to date. The Michigan Justice Fund’s goals are to support the economic mobility and success of people with criminal records, reduce reliance on confinement and adjudication, and stem the flow of individuals into the criminal legal system. Since its launch, the collaborative has made more than $9.7 million in grants to 56 organizations, 30 of which employ directly impacted leaders. The fund has touched all 83 counties in Michigan, served as a vital convener in the criminal legal reform space and advocated for policy change at the state level.
One through line has been the Michigan Justice Fund’s focus on working with grantee partners, like Kubiak and the Center for Behavioral Health and Justice at Wayne State, to create systemic change that centers the voices of marginalized populations we’re often asked to forget: the poor, the imprisoned and their families.
2022 Initiatives and targeted funds
Active Community Foundation initiatives during 2022 included:
Afghan Resettlement Fund
This fund supports urgent human services/basic needs and legal services for Afghan refugees arriving in Michigan following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021. The Council of Michigan Foundations requested this fund be established so foundations from across the state could pool funds to support this population.
Black-Led Mental Health Partnership
This collaborative funds partnerships between Black-led community-based organizations and trusted behavioral care providers. The goal is to enable organizations to connect their clients to quality Black-led mental health services. This pilot program was launched because racial and ethnic minority groups are less likely to have access to mental health services, less likely to use community mental health services, more likely to use inpatient hospitalization and emergency rooms, and more likely to receive lower-quality care. A collaborative of Michigan-based foundations supports this work.
Community Policing Innovations Initiative
The Community Policing Innovations Initiative provides guidance and support for local community leaders and organizations, in partnership with local law enforcement, to develop community-driven, substantive and pragmatic changes in how policing and public safety services are provided. A group of local corporate and private foundations supports this work.
Detroit Journalism Engagement Fund
The Detroit Journalism Engagement Fund was created in 2017 by the Ford Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the Community Foundation to increase the quality, outcomes and reach of journalism in the region, with an emphasis on engagement, innovation and the equitable recovery of Detroit.
The Great Lakes Way®
The Great Lakes Way aims to create an interconnected set of 156 miles of blueways and 143 miles of greenways stretching from southern Lake Huron to western Lake Erie. The trail will provide southeast Michigan residents and visitors access to world-class freshwater, wildlife, recreation and heritage. A group of local foundations supports this effort.
Michigan Justice Fund
The Michigan Justice Fund is a collaborative philanthropic strategy designed to create a thriving, enabling environment in Michigan necessary to advance justice reform initiatives. Fifteen local and national foundations support this effort.
Michigan Opioid Partnership
The Michigan Opioid Partnership is a public-private collaborative including the State of Michigan and key health-focused philanthropic organizations that share the goal of decreasing Michigan’s high rate of opioid overdoses and deaths.
New Economy Initiative
The New Economy Initiative works to diversify the regional economy of southeast Michigan and stimulate entrepreneurial development.
Oral Health Equity Initiative
The Oral Health Equity Initiative is comprised of funders dedicated to reducing racial disparities, increasing access to quality oral health care and eliminating barriers to workforce opportunities in dental fields.
Pontiac Funders Collaborative
The Pontiac Funders Collaborative supports leaders in Pontiac who are working to identify citywide goals, and provides funding to build capacity that enables local leaders and organizations to achieve those goals. It is comprised of local foundations.
Project Play
This initiative — supported by the Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation — seeks community and stakeholder input to collaboratively build local solutions that ensure all children can be active in sports.
Southeast Michigan Immigrant and Refugee Funder Collaborative
The Community Foundation, in partnership with other local foundations, created this collaborative to address the needs of immigrants and refugees in our region, including conducting “know your rights” campaigns, providing direct human services and referrals, serving as a hub for community activities, providing direct legal services and more.
Staging Change Detroit: Building the Capacity to Innovate and Adapt
This initiative, supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation since 2018, has provided capacity-building support to a group of 10 nonprofit theaters located in Detroit or Hamtramck.
Targeted, permanently endowed grantmaking funds at the Community Foundation during 2022 included:
Detroit Auto Dealers Charitable Foundation Fund
This fund supports nonprofit organizations that improve the lives of children and youth throughout our region.
The HOPE Fund
This fund was created in 1994 to strengthen organizations and projects that support LGBTQ+ individuals and families through targeted grantmaking and technical assistance.
Inclusive Arts Fund
This fund supports small- to mid-size arts and culture nonprofits throughout our seven-county region, building on related efforts to promote inclusion in and expand access to the arts.
Michigan Central/Church Street Fund
The fund supports neighborhood improvement activities in the Detroit communities of Corktown, North Corktown and Hubbard Richard.
The Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Legacy Funds
These four funds focus on caregiving, design and access, and youth sports throughout the region, including the Grosse Pointe communities.
The Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Trails Maintenance Fund
This fund provides ongoing support for already developed trails and greenways.
Youth Leadership Fund
Youth Advisory Committee members review grant proposals from organizations that benefit youth in southeast Michigan and make recommendations from this fund.
We Are
Philanthropic Partners
The Community Foundation helps individuals, families, businesses, nonprofit agencies and private foundations — along with their professional advisors — create personalized strategies to achieve their philanthropic goals. In 2022, our donors demonstrated their trust in us with $67 million in new gifts.
The Community Foundation’s deep relationships and knowledge of the local communities we serve set us apart from traditional investment firms. We also offer a variety of fund types, including the following.
Flexible:
These funds empower the Community Foundation to identify and support projects that address urgent needs and unforeseen opportunities with an enduring legacy of public good.
Field of interest:
These funds identify a focus area — such as the arts, youth or the environment — to support in perpetuity. The Community Foundation will make grants to partners doing work in the specified field of interest.
Designated:
These funds provide a permanent income stream to one or more designated nonprofit organizations from a single fund.
Agency:
Nonprofit organizations can establish these funds to support their agency’s mission in perpetuity.
Donor-advised funds:
An individual, family, business or private foundation can establish a donor-advised fund. These funds allow donors to appoint advisors to recommend grants or take an ongoing, active role in giving.
Supporting organizations:
A supporting organization is a separate legal entity managed by the Community Foundation. It offers the favorable tax benefits of a public charity, while leveraging the foundation’s financial management and grantmaking expertise.
Charitable gift annuity:
These funds are invested to provide an income stream to one or two individuals during their lifetime(s), with the remainder of the gift supporting a named charitable fund.
Scholarships:
These funds help students throughout our region achieve their educational goals.
Highlight: JOINING FORCES
FOR THE KIDS
“Working with the Community Foundation for the past 25 years has been a seamless, easy process for me and my team. It’s been one of the best experiences I’ve had in dealing with any organization,” Detroit Auto Dealers Association (DADA) Executive Director Rod Alberts says.
Alberts came to the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan in 1998 with a wonderful problem. The DADA had been successfully raising funds for selected charities through the North American International Auto Show Charity Preview and became inundated with requests from nonprofits outside of the event’s scope.
“I always say that it’s harder to give away $3 million than it is to give away $3,000,” Alberts says. “I was having so many charities call me asking for money that it was taking up a lot of my time. There’s no way I can screen all those, and it’s hard to say no to a charity when I don’t know much about them.”
So, he turned to the Community Foundation for help. As a philanthropic partner, the Community Foundation offered deep relationships throughout southeast Michigan, the capacity to research nonprofits, and investment expertise to help the DADA achieve its charitable goals.
Staff at the Community Foundation worked with the DADA to develop a giving strategy that included establishing the Detroit Auto Dealers Association Charitable Foundation Fund to improve the lives of children and youth in our region. Since launching the endowed field of interest fund, The DADA has granted more than $7.5 million to 178 organizations. Grantees have included a wide range of nonprofits, from CARE House of Oakland County to the Michigan Hispanic Collective to The Yunion, whose martial arts program recently was featured in a Tribeca Film Festival documentary.
Because the Detroit Auto Dealers Association Charitable Foundation Fund is endowed — meaning the Community Foundation invests fund contributions for long-term growth and makes a portion of the assets available every year for grantmaking — the DADA was able to continue supporting nonprofits during the COVID-19 pandemic, even when the North American International Auto Show Charity Preview was canceled in 2020 and 2021.
“I never would have thought, going into it, that we would help out so many charities,” Alberts says. “Working with the Community Foundation has been good for us and good for the kids.”
We Are
Community Capital
One of the most valuable services the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan provides, in collaboration with our generous donors, is to build community capital.
Community capital is made up of flexible funds that allow us to respond nimbly to evolving opportunities and unforeseen crises in the community today and for generations to come.
Our Southeast Michigan Forever Fund can be tapped to support any project throughout our seven-county service area that fulfills the Community Foundation’s mission. The broad scope of this fund allows us to seed our change-making initiatives, pool money with grants from other funds to amplify our impact, and support innovative pilot programs throughout our region.
A field of interest fund is a popular tool that lets donors make an impact in our region by supporting a charitable cause instead of a specific nonprofit. This flexible fund type allows the Community Foundation to respond agilely to community needs in an ever-changing landscape. For example, the Community Foundation manages funds that support causes including arts and culture, children and youth, economic development, health and human services, and the environment.
Our operating endowment supports the Community Foundation’s work. This fund ensures we have the talented people, up-to-date technology and other resources necessary to fulfill our mission of creating permanent, positive change through thoughtful philanthropy.
Continuing to grow our flexible, endowed funds is vital to ensuring that the Community Foundation can continue to support nonprofit partners leading the way to a brighter future throughout southeast Michigan.
Highlight: GIVING THAT
KEEPS ON LIVING
“I’m always interested in how a grant from the Community Foundation will have a broad impact. I try to think about the greatest number of people, as well as the areas that have the greatest need,” Dr. Glenda Price says.
Price, a longtime supporter of the Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, has served on the Board of Trustees since 2008, established two donor-advised funds and regularly gives to the organization’s operating endowment.
She also is a distinguished community member who served as the president of the Detroit Public Schools Foundation from 2012 to 2016 and was president of Marygrove College from 1998 to 2006. She was the first African American to hold the position. Price has been retired since 2016 and volunteers on several boards throughout the city of Detroit. Her focus is on education, the arts and health care.
As a philanthropist, Price is committed to building community capital through her donations to the Community Foundation’s operating endowment, as well as the Glenda Price Endowed Fund. The endowed fund eventually will roll into the Southeast Michigan Forever Fund, where it will continue to help fulfill the Community Foundation’s mission in perpetuity.
“You really do need to think about the future. Even with the modest funds that I have, they can go on into the future and will support individuals, programs and ideas that I can’t conceive of right now,” Price says. “To think that I’m going to have an impact long beyond me is certainly intriguing.”
