News & Insights
From grantmaking updates to sharing what we’re learning from our community, grantee partners, and peers, we invite you to learn more about our ongoing work here.
Celebrating Kate: A Season of Recognition
Twenty-five years ago, Kate Levin Markel joined the McGregor Fund. As she prepares to step down at the end of this year, she is being honored during a richly-deserved season of recognition.
News & Insights
From grantmaking updates to sharing what we’re learning from our community, grantee partners, and peers, we invite you to learn more about our ongoing work here.
Celebrating Kate: A Season of Recognition
Twenty-five years ago, Kate Levin Markel joined the McGregor Fund. As she prepares to step down at the end of this year, she is being honored during a richly-deserved season of recognition.
Highlighting the Work of Our Grant Partners
📣 In the first half of 2026, the McGregor Fund made Recovery & Restoration grants, totaling $2.4 million to ten grant partners, for pathways to safety and healing from interpersonal and societal violence, abuse and inequity.
A note about our grant partners:
📌 The Fund supported grant partners expanding restorative justice infrastructure for Detroiters facing barriers created by mass incarceration, including direct legal services, peer-led reentry stabilization, clinical support and economic mobility programming. This includes partners connecting individuals to stable housing, healthcare access and workforce pathways, and supporting their movement towards long-term community reintegration.
📌 Additional grants were made to partners leading community violence intervention work, including behavioral health services, workforce development and wraparound supports for youth and families. Other grants supported partners advancing digital media and education infrastructure to facilitate mentoring, restorative intervention, and arts and emotional wellness support.
📌 The Fund also made grants to partners providing emergency and long-term recovery support to adult survivors of domestic violence and their dependents, including access to immediate shelter, bridge housing and relocation; classes to support mobility and independence; flexible financial assistance; and culturally-grounded transitional housing and support programs, including a pilot affordable housing project.
➡️ Read more about our grantmaking here: mcgregorfund.org/mcgregor-fund-announces-7-5-million-in-grants-other-news/
📣 In the first half of 2026, the McGregor Fund made eight Basic Needs: Housing and Food Justice grants, totaling $2.5 million, for food, shelter, and other necessities essential for day-to-day living.
A note about our grant partners:
📌 To advance housing justice, the McGregor Fund awarded grants to partners connecting Detroiters to essential health resources, community-based care, housing and wraparound services.
📌 Grants were made to partners providing direct, flexible aid to individuals across Detroit, including one working to reduce child poverty and improve maternal and infant health outcomes and another providing coordinated entry and permanent supportive housing services to youth experiencing homelessness.
📌 Also included were grants supporting community food sovereignty, healthy meal provision and food waste reduction, as well as a grant to a partner building community coalitions and advancing systems-level food advocacy. Another grant was made to a partner expanding land ownership and agriculture infrastructure for Detroit-based urban farming networks.
➡️ Read more about our grantmaking here: mcgregorfund.org/mcgregor-fund-announces-7-5-million-in-grants-other-news/
0 CommentsComment on Facebook
📣 The McGregor Fund is pleased to announce $7.5 million in grants awarded to 32 nonprofit organizations in the first half of 2026.
📌 Our grantmaking included support for partners who are providing direct assistance to individuals and families, advancing systems-level food advocacy and expanding land ownership, expanding restorative justice infrastructure, leading community violence intervention, providing innovative support to survivors of domestic violence, and offering youth development, leadership and skill-building opportunities.
📌 It also included support for partners who are activating community-driven solutions promoting well-being and thriving and who are working to advance a shared economic justice agenda centering Black Detroiters and those most disconnected from economic opportunity.
📌 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.
➡️ Read more about our grantmaking here: mcgregorfund.org/mcgregor-fund-announces-7-5-million-in-grants-other-news/
0 CommentsComment on Facebook
Michigan SNAP recipients may qualify for additional assistance to replace food spoiled during recent storms and power outages
0 CommentsComment on Facebook
The power and influence of women has been a driving force throughout the McGregor Fund’s history — from our leadership today, to the many women leaders and founders we're honored to partner with, and tracing all the way back to Katherine Whitney McGregor herself.
Historically, the Fund has shared less about Katherine. In part, we wanted to honor her wish to decenter herself from both the work of the Fund and her family’s estate.
A century later, we feel it’s time to bring her story further into the light.
Read Katherine’s Story on our Centennial page: mcgregorfund.org/100/
#McGregorFund #RadicalLove #WomensHistory #philanthropy
0 CommentsComment on Facebook
Thank you Girl Scouts of Southeastern Michigan - GSSEM!
Today, Kate received a Tough Enough Award from GSSEM, as someone “whose leadership, youth advocacy, and community impact reflect what it means to be ‘Tough Enough’ to be a Girl Scout.”
Kate and her fellow honorees also discussed how youth organizations, employers and philanthropies can meet young people where they are in a changing world of work. In response to asking what she wished someone had told her as she started her career:
“There are some core tenets of what makes for a happy or productive person, and those things seem to be universal and don't change…all things that the Girl Scouts program has long understood and modeled for decades.
It’s just so important for young people to understand that they have something special in them, that they have to understand what their passion is. They have to feel confident to pursue that passion. They need really loving, trustworthy adults around them who will catch them when they fall and tell them to get back up. As older folks, it's incumbent on us to make sure that young people continue to have those opportunities.
The Girl Scouts is such a wonderful legacy organization, and it has not stood still. There are other organizations in community who also want to be there for our young people, and I think the responsibility we all have is to really think, 'How do we resource that?' There's no shortage of people who want to be there for young folks.”
#GSSEM #GirlScoutStrong #ToughEnough
3 CommentsComment on Facebook
McGregor Fund Founders
More than 100 years ago, the McGregors devoted their lives to community service – Tracy as an agency founder and social entrepreneur ending homelessness and unemployment for Detroit men, and Katherine as the founder and benefactor of an orphanage in Highland Park. Their proximity to people experiencing hardship and trauma informed their charitable giving and Tracy’s role as a civic leader.
McGregor Fund Founders
More than 100 years ago, the McGregors devoted their lives to community service – Tracy as an agency founder and social entrepreneur ending homelessness and unemployment for Detroit men, and Katherine as the founder and benefactor of an orphanage in Highland Park. Their proximity to people experiencing hardship and trauma informed their charitable giving and Tracy’s role as a civic leader.
McGregor Fund Newsletter
Sign up for the McGregor Fund’s quarterly newsletter to receive updates on our activities and ideas.
0 CommentsComment on Facebook