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We envision an economic landscape that helps Detroiters move along a continuum toward a middle-class household income and generational wealth. We aspire to see residents obtain jobs that provide a living wage, opportunity for advancement and overall family stability.
Our investments focus on:
The Hope Starts Here framework, created in partnership with the Kresge Foundation, promotes systems transformation through community engagement, collective investments and a coordinated approach.
Our Hope Starts Here investment supports:
We’ve already seen some significant developments in policies that increase access to child care scholarships (formerly subsidies), child tax credits and supports for the early childhood workforce.
Grassroots community organizers – often the people most directly affected by racism and injustice – are leading innovative and necessary solutions to Detroit’s problems. We ground our grantmaking approach in ensuring organizations led by people of color have what they need to address structural racism as it intersects with other systems of inequality.
Improving systemic social issues involves shifting perceptions and beliefs by changing the narrative. Detroit’s story needs to be told using asset-based, empowering narratives highlighting the people who have always loved the city and kept going through every challenge. This is the story of the real Detroit moving into an equitable future.
To change the Detroit narrative, we invest in:
Welcome to Detroit. The people of our city can teach the world something about resilience and what it takes to come back when systems fail children and families. Detroiters know that lasting change only happens through addressing historical racial tensions and injustices, and centering racial equity, community engagement and local leadership.
As attention and opportunity return to the city, it’s critical to tell the story of the real Detroit: a place where people with grit and determination held on when others gave up. These stories provide power to the Detroiters who are forging the city’s future and frame that future around the vision of equity held by people who have always loved the city.
We’re making groundbreaking and impactful investments to ensure organizations led by people of color have what they need to bring their vision to life – and to ensure racial equity is the cornerstone of the Detroit experience from day one, birth through career.
Improving systemic social issues involves shifting perceptions and beliefs by changing the narrative. Detroit’s story needs to be told using asset-based, empowering narratives that highlight the people who have always loved the city and kept going through every challenge. This is the story of the real Detroit moving into an equitable future.
Our focused investments in Detroit champion:
We also invest statewide to fix broken systems in early childhood education, employment equity and health equity so they work for all children and families across the state.
Our focus on early care and education supports:
To promote employment equity, we support:
Our focus on health equity aims to eliminate race-based health disparities in:
Children and families experiencing hardship need advocates who hear them and believe in their unique perspectives and solutions. We focus on supporting statewide policy advocacy to get systems working equitably for all children, families and communities across Michigan.
We are Michigan-made. Our commitment to our home state comes from the humble perseverance and determination of a Michigander, Will Keith Kellogg, who simply wanted children to have a chance to thrive.
Our community partners show the same work ethic and innovation in building solutions for children and families, from Battle Creek to Detroit to Grand Rapids and at the state level. Each is committed to re-envisioning what community can be and retooling the systems that affect family’s lives, so all children start life on the road to success.
We are honored to engage in collaborative planning and action with community-based organizations, local leaders, foundation partners and the business community to remove barriers and change what’s possible for children and families in Michigan.
Children and families of color living in low-income communities face significant barriers in their access to good food, which compromises health, well-being and school readiness. Historic and current discriminatory policies limit access to physical and financial resources for farmers and entrepreneurs of color across the food system. Structural racism disconnects communities from their rich cultural food traditions and agricultural history. Land dispossession, and the unequal treatment of farmers of color, widens the racial wealth gap and stymies intergenerational and community wealth-building.
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these longstanding inequities and structural issues but local and regional food systems generated rapid innovations and pivots. Attention to local and regional food systems is one of the most resilient, effective ways to get healthy food to children and families – and universal access to nutrition in schools.
Our employment equity grantmaking supports initiatives that increase access to resources, promote financial stability, create high-quality employment opportunities and strengthen entrepreneurship.
This work includes:
The well-being of women and children is crucial for a healthy society. Yet the U.S. experiences maternal and infant death rates far higher than similarly large and wealthy countries. Women suffer preventable deaths at twice the rate of most high-income countries and infant mortality is on the rise. With data showing stark racial disparities, Black and Native American women and infants fare the worst.
These realities stem from broader social and economic issues rooted in structural inequities that greatly harm birthing people and babies of color. It’s not just low-income families that are affected. Racial disparities persist even when controlling for factors like education and income.
Addressing systemic racism within the health care system is crucial for improving maternal and infant health equity. We support work focused on:
Health equity exists when every child and family can achieve optimal health, nurtured by community contexts and appropriate, culturally relevant supports. The COVID-19 era illustrated what many in the field have long known: structures and systems of oppression – especially racism – are at the root of health inequities.
Although the public health emergency officially ended in early 2023, COVID and its aftermath continue to impact communities. The public health system received unprecedented funding, yet the sector continues to grapple with its future. Public health suffers from an inequitable flow of resources into communities, a lack of coordination with other sectors and communities and extreme vulnerability to political whims.
Our health equity work focuses on:
All kids deserve caring, high-quality and culturally relevant early learning opportunities. However, significant challenges and barriers in education systems disproportionately affect children of color, children from low-income families and English learners.
This is why our funding focuses on advancing equity in systems of care and learning for all children from birth to age 8 through approaches focused on:
WKKF staff member since April 2013
At WKKF, we listen to understand our employees and improve their experiences. Staff provide input through a variety of feedback channels, including daily team meanings, biweekly check-ins with leaders, project retrospectives, monthly snapshot surveys and a biennial Staff Perception Survey conducted independently.
WKKF staff member since May 1994
We affirm one another’s humanity. We respect, leverage and celebrate the diverseperspectives of people.
Every staff person contributes to multi-disciplinary teams that embrace diverse experiences. We lean into each other’s knowledge, wisdom, lived experience and professional skills, so no one person needs to be the expert in everything all the time.Staff development opportunities foster self-awareness and emotional intelligence, while team development experiences build appreciation of each other’s gifts. Plus, every staff person, in every role participates in goal-setting, strategy development and decision-making.
WKKF staff member since June 2019
WKKF staff have opportunities to:
WKKF family member since November 2016
WKKF family member since November 2009
We work with partners and grantees across the country to spur transformational change so all children can thrive. Our impact reaches all 50 states and is guided by the leadership of families and communities who know best what their children need.
Our country’s increasing racial and ethnic diversity is our greatest asset for actualizing a future where every child thrives. Yet the current landscape is one of immense challenges. Deeply ingrained inequities in policies, practices, resources, power dynamics, beliefs and narratives form the basis for many of our most intractable problems. These underlying inequities result in poor outcomes for communities, families and children.
Our grantee partners throughout the U.S. are tackling persistent gaps in access to:
Each of these serve as evidence that systemic barriers hinder children from achieving their fullest potential. In short, systems hold barriers in place. Our work aims to disrupt them.
We’re taking on bold, innovative solutions to shift narratives, strengthen strategic partnerships and build power within communities. Our work cuts across the political aisle, philanthropic siloes, diverse sectors and issue areas. Together with our partners and grantees, we’re advancing results-driven changes that make systems work for every child.
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