McGregor Fund

03/18/2026

🎉 Please join us in celebrating Heidi Alcock, McGregor Fund Vice President of Strategy & Grants Portfolio and all-around exceptional human being, who recently marked a decade of work with us.

Heidi leads the Fund's grantmaking and program strategy, and guides the evolution of the grants portfolio to become a truer reflection of community culture and vision.

From everyone at the McGregor Fund, we thank you, Heidi, for your intentional, innovative, and heart-centered leadership — and we’re beaming at the reality of just how lucky we are to have you on our team. ❤️

03/10/2026

03/09/2026

📰 What we’re reading: BridgeDetroit’s feature on Luke Shaefer, Chief Executive of Health, Human Services and Poverty Solutions and Benita Miller, Director, Department of Human, Homeless and Family Services for the City of Detroit Government.

Together, Miller and Shaefer are “working to reduce poverty and make it easier for vulnerable Detroiters to get the help they need…[and] change systems so they work better for families.”

Luke Shaefer and Benita Miller recently joined Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield's administration as part of her push to "break the cycle of poverty."

03/06/2026

In the second half of 2025, the McGregor Fund’s grantmaking included nearly $2.3 million in emergency funds, through 21 grants, to partners who are activating mutual aid networks and community-driven solutions, working to increase access to quality food, scaling local food production, and building pipelines of safety for support for vulnerable citizens — among other critical work.

This rapid deployment of funds largely responded to federal retrenchment, including to the halt of SNAP benefits last fall, and was developed in close collaboration with partners and funding peers.

Grants were made as emergency funding to stabilize essential services and to provide core operating support for our partners navigating shifting public policies and funding landscapes. Highlights of our grant partners' work included:

📌 Produce rescue and distribution
📌 Provision of food and basic needs to senior citizens
📌 Prepared meals and food boxes for families
📌 Support for vulnerable returning citizens
📌 Food and housing vouchers for youth.

➡️ Read a letter from our president and learn about our grantmaking here: https://mcgregorfund.org/mcgregor-fund-announces-7-5-million-in-grants/

03/04/2026

In the second half of 2025, the McGregor Fund made four additional grants, totaling $735,000, to partner organizations working to strengthen the infrastructure of civil society and to promote justice and equity, particularly in an environment marked by increasing threats and challenges to the well-being of Detroit and its residents.

Our grant partners’ work includes:

📌 Building an ecosystem in Detroit that centers Black thriving.

📌 Promoting justice and changing lives and laws by advancing alternatives to drug-related arrests and incarceration; this includes increased access to health services and partnership-building with advocates and harm reduction programs.

📌 Advancing strategic communications around healthcare access.

📌 Growing organizational capacity for participatory grantmaking and grassroots leadership.

➡️ Read a letter from our president and learn about our grantmaking here: https://mcgregorfund.org/mcgregor-fund-announces-7-5-million-in-grants/

03/02/2026

In the second half of 2025, the McGregor Fund made five grants, totaling $1.3 million, under our Skill Building & Employment umbrella to promote economic justice and mobility and focusing on personal development, fulfillment, choice and connection.

A note about our grant partners:

📌 One grant was made to a partner who provides skills training and creates entrepreneurship and living-wage employment opportunities for women, while connecting them to preventative and mental health care and pathways to stability and economic independence.

📌 Additional grant funding was allocated to a partner designing innovative programs that integrate employment readiness training, skill building, and wraparound services.

📌 To respond to the increasing challenges particularly marginalized groups are facing, the Fund is also granting support to a partner advancing economic justice for immigrants working to achieve stability, grow within the regional economy, and engage in local systems and civic life.

📌 Additionally, the Fund made a grant to support a partner’s capacity to lead organizing and leadership skill-building efforts, build youth power, and further strengthen the youth-led organizing ecosystem. 

Read a letter from our president and learn about our grantmaking here: https://mcgregorfund.org/mcgregor-fund-announces-7-5-million-in-grants/

02/26/2026

In the second half of 2025, the McGregor Fund made Recovery & Restoration grants, totaling $1.2 million, to five grant partners, for pathways to safety and healing from interpersonal and societal violence, abuse and inequity.

A note about our grant partners:

📌 We supported partners providing comprehensive, trauma-informed, survivor-centered care for individuals impacted by sexual violence, including emergency and long-term support services, crisis hotlines, medical exams, legal support and prevention programs, as well as interdisciplinary work to strengthen systemic approaches to combating violence and meeting the needs of survivors.

📌 We made other grants to a partner developing housing stability interventions for Detroiters affected by excessive property tax assessments and foreclosures and to another partner promoting mental health awareness and early intervention services to youth and families via school-based and community programming.

📌 For several of these partners, the Fund continues to help fill significant current and anticipated operating budget shortfalls caused by greatly delayed and/or dramatically reduced federal funding.

➡️ Read a letter from our president and learn about our grantmaking here: https://mcgregorfund.org/mcgregor-fund-announces-7-5-million-in-grants/

02/24/2026

In the second half of 2025, the McGregor Fund made 24 Basic Needs: Housing and Food grants, totaling $3.9 million, for food, shelter, and other necessities essential for day-to-day living.

A note about our grant partners:

📌 To advance housing justice and to address urgent housing and basic needs, we awarded grants to networks connecting Detroiters to essential health resources, community-based care and shelter bed availability. Support also went to partners providing housing, wraparound services and pathways to stability and thriving. These include a community-driven residential project, integrated health and prevention services, an early-intervention, direct financial support program, and other work to continue building a youth homelessness ecosystem.

📌 Grants were also made to partners experiencing funding cuts, to sustain their vital work to promote housing stability for individuals and families in crisis and to provide permanent supportive housing services for those experiencing chronic homelessness, substance abuse disorders and other disabling conditions.

📌 Also included were grants to promote food justice, in support of neighborhood food sovereignty, community resilience, land stewardship, emergency food distribution and food access, and the region’s food system infrastructure. Grants were also made to advance partners providing energy-saving, health-and-safety interventions, and community crisis preparation and response networks.

Read a letter from our president and learn about our grantmaking here: https://mcgregorfund.org/mcgregor-fund-announces-7-5-million-in-grants/

02/18/2026

📣The McGregor Fund is pleased to announce $7.5 million in grants awarded to 37 nonprofit organizations in the second half of 2025.

📌Our grantmaking included support for partners who are advancing food sovereignty and housing justice work, responding powerfully to interruptions in essential services and funding, working towards housing stability, creating opportunities for skill-building and entrepreneurship, developing community support, building youth leadership ecosystems, and supporting the well-being and overall thriving of Detroiters.

📌The Fund has also continued emergency grantmaking to current grant partners impacted by federal budget cuts and those serving individuals at risk of losing housing, access to basic needs, or safety.

From McGregor Fund President Kate Levin Markel:

💬“As an endowed foundation, we recognized our position of strength and power, and with that, our responsibility to give back more in grants. We kept our focus on justice — in housing, in access to food, in how members of our community participate in an economy with exploding inequality and daily headwinds for most everyone.”

➡️Read more from Kate and learn about our grantmaking here: https://mcgregorfund.org/mcgregor-fund-announces-7-5-million-in-grants/

02/11/2026

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02/05/2026

🤩 MCEDSV 2026 CONFERENCE CALL FOR PROPOSALS

We are excited to share this opportunity for you to consider presenting at this year’s conference, Centering Justice Amid Injustice, July 21-23, 2026 in Ann Arbor!

No matter where you do the work or what your title is, YOUR PERSPECTIVE MATTERS HERE. We welcome a wide range of presenters, including youth, people with lived experience, and those whose voices are often overlooked in formal or public spaces.

Every year we receive incredible proposals from folks in the field. Is this the year YOU apply?! We cannot wait to read your submission!

The deadline is MARCH 6th, 2026. Review the Call for Proposals!
▶https://mcedsv.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/call-for-session-proposals-2026-5.pdf

02/03/2026

From SDM² Project Education: "We work really hard, not just to ensure that we are able to provide an abundance of high-quality foods, but that we offer an experience that is humanizing, joyful, and communal. We’re glad we are able to translate that vision to the community."