Letter from the President
Dear friends, dear community,
It’s important to start this letter by clearly naming the moment we’re in. For one very long year, we’ve experienced a federal administration brazen in its authoritarian power grabs, fascist in its politics, and cruel and inhumane in its tactics and rhetoric. Threats to the social safety net cannot be overstated, already underway through the defunding of programs and stripping away of benefits and services, by any and every means.
In these truly unprecedented times, as individuals, families, organizations, and communities, we must constantly assess our safety, our vulnerabilities, our strengths, our convictions. We must look to each other for protection, mutual aid, courage, power, acts of kindness, and joyful breaks from willful inhumanity and deliberate chaos.
For us at the McGregor Fund, our path in 2025 felt clear. As an endowed foundation, we recognized our position of strength and power, and with that, our responsibility to give back more in grants — beginning with doubling our typical grantmaking budget. We must do more to support grant partners who are navigating treacherous funding and policy terrain, while sometimes under attack by a weaponized federal government and its allies. This support is determined with our partners and takes many forms.
We also saw the need to speak truth loudly to, and for, those who cannot. We joined others to push back on attempts to redefine who our federal government is and what it is for, so that one day public trust can be restored. 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. In short, we upped our game, expanding our team to do so.
Without question, our resolve is clearly informed by the work of our partners, as they’ve responded to emergencies, fought to preserve key capacities, defended vulnerable communities, and continued to build toward a better future, sometimes doing all these things at once. You may notice that, unlike in the past, our grants announcements are unspecified by partner and program — not because the work is short of remarkable, but to keep names out of circulation given the hostile environment some of our partners now live in. That’s an uncomfortable shift for us, but one we determined we needed to make. From all of us at the Fund, a big THANK YOU for just incredible work. Partners, you know who you are, and we are so grateful for all that you do, each and every day!
Like many, I had my share of down days this past year and am relieved it’s behind us. Most days still feel hard and heavy, but in these early days of 2026 I’m also feeling more reasons to be hopeful. Some brakes on the federal administration appear to be working. Across the country and here at home, we’re witnessing the emergence of growing, courageous, organized community resistance. Our most visionary community leaders are not retreating, but forging ahead towards better and more just systems, with community thriving as their North Star.
The McGregor team and our board remain attuned to both the dangers and the opportunities of these times, to both the attempts to break democracy and the need to support strong community defenses, well-being, and leadership, and to build power, nimbly and unequivocally. We will stay the course in the year ahead.
2026 also marks the centennial of our founding — a milestone that offers us an opportunity to step back and learn more about the origins of the McGregors’ wealth, to reflect on our larger purpose over time in dialogue with our partners, to celebrate their work, and to affirm our shared values and aspirations. Look for more communications throughout the year as we shape these conversations and gatherings.
In closing, please stay in touch. We all value your insights, ideas, questions, and feedback.
Take good care,
Kate
Recent Grants Awarded
The McGregor Fund is pleased to share news of $7.5 million in grants awarded to 37 area nonprofit organizations in the second half of 2025.
Highlights include 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.
Basic Needs & Housing
Basic Needs: Housing and Food grants, totaling $3.9 million, for food, shelter, and other necessities essential for day-to-day living, were approved for 24 grant partners..
To advance housing justice and to address urgent housing and basic needs, the McGregor Fund 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.
Recovery & Restoration
Recovery & Restoration grants, totaling $
The Fund supported grant 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.
Other grants were made 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.
Skill Building & Employment
Five grants under the Skill Building & Employment umbrella, totaling $1.3 million, were made to promote economic justice and mobility, focusing on personal development, fulfillment, choice and connection.
One grant was made to a partner that 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.
Additional Grants
The Fund also made four grants, totaling $735,000, to organizations that strengthen the infrastructure of civil society and promote justice and equity, particularly in an environment marked by increasing threats and challenges to the well-being of Detroit and its residents.
One recent grant was made to a new partner building an ecosystem in Detroit that centers Black thriving. Another grant supported ongoing work to promote justice and change lives and laws, by advancing alternatives to drug-related arrests and incarceration that includes increased access to health services and partnership-building with advocates and harm reduction programs. Other grants were made to advance both strategic communications around healthcare access and capacity growth for participatory grantmaking and grassroots leadership.
Emergency Grantmaking
Among these grants, nearly $2.3 million in emergency funds were designated for grant 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.
These 21 approved 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, and food and housing vouchers for youth.
A note to our readers:
To promote the safety and security of our grant partners, we are continuing to take a different approach to sharing news. While we are honored to share highlights of our partners’ work, we are refraining from publicly listing their names or additional details about the grants themselves. We are in deep gratitude to the movement leaders who contributed to our heightened organizational awareness around safety and security, and for the grace of our community as we all adjust to a quickly shifting landscape.
