What We Fund

The Skillman Foundation provides grant funding and other supports to organizations that expand opportunity for Detroit children and help them achieve their highest aspirations through K-12 education, afterschool learning opportunities, and pathways to college and career.

K-12 Education

We support a high-quality system of schools that help children meet educational milestones and move through life as capable and confident thinkers.

K-12 Education Grants

Afterschool System

We with community partners to build a robust ecosystem of out-of-school learning opportunities that allow kids to explore and expand their sense of self and the world under the guidance of caring adults.

Afterschool System Grants

College & Career Pathways

We support an integrated, youth-centered college and career pathway system to provide youth with the experiences, supports, and opportunities needed to follow a path of their choosing, leading us all to a more prosperous and equitable future.

College & Career Pathways Grants

Grant Partner Requirements

  • Be a nonprofit 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization and provide your tax ID (EIN) number or be a government or public agency (city, county, state, public school district)
  • Be a publicly supported charity as defined in Section 509(a) of the Internal Revenue Code
  • Have total revenues of at least $100,000 for your preceding fiscal year and be able to provide a copy of a current financial audit conducted by an independent certified public accountant
  • In policy and practice, offer opportunity and service to all, regardless of age, race, creed, gender, religion, disability, sexual orientation, and ethnicity

What We Don’t Fund

  • Individuals
  • For-profit institutions
  • Endowments, building campaigns, or capital costs, including construction, renovation, or equipment
  • Political campaigns, to support political activities or to lobby for or against pieces of legislation
  • Award scholarships or provide tuition assistance
How to Apply

Grants

Filter Grants by:

Impact Area
Initiative
Year

Michigan Association of United Ways

This grant will support the Michigan After-School Partnership (MASP) to advance its mission to champion statewide access to quality and equitable out-of-school programs to ensure that all children and youth succeed. This investment will deepen MASP’s presence in Detroit and expand pathways for Detroit providers to advocate for statewide afterschool funding. MASP will lead efforts to map statewide afterschool providers for afterschool. A critical foundation project will be for MASP to conduct a statewide mapping of provider (scale and slots) by region and map key stakeholders and advocates.

2021

$125,000

Boys & Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan

This grant will support Boys and Girls Clubs of Southeastern Michigan (BGCSM) to provide COVID response support to 150 youth, ages 6-17, through a safe and supportive environment that provides full day academic support, social, emotional, and basic need resources at the Dauch (Cody Rouge) site through school year 2020-21 and summer 2021. Additionally, this support will enable BGCSM, in partnership with Downtown Boxing Gym and the Youth Development Resource Center (YDRC), to document best practices and recommendations to build capacity in others around safe spaces for youth during COVID.

2021

$200,000

Downtown Boxing Gym Youth Program

This grant will support Downtown Boxing Gym (DBG) to provide COVID response support to 150 youth, ages 6-17, through a safe sand supportive environment that provides full day academic support, social, emotional, and basic need resources through school year 2020-21 and summer 2021. Additionally, this support will enable DBG, in partnership with Boys and Girls Club of Southeast Michigan (BGCSM) and the Youth Development Resource Center (YDRC), to document best practices and recommendations to build capacity in others around safe spaces for youth during COVID.

2021

$200,000

Council of Michigan Foundations, Inc.

This grant continues support for Launch Michigan, an important policy collaborative of cross-sector leaders and organizations of influence. The organization has adopted a commitment develop a shared education agenda for Michigan that prioritizes equity to improve outcomes for all children. While there is a long-term agenda for this transformation, the most urgent priorities focus on accelerating a structural reform that accelerates equitable funding.

2021

$150,000

Local Circles

This grant will provide funding for Local Circles to conduct an afterschool and summer Youth Leadership Research Program (YLRP) for 36 youth to prepare them for deeper leadership and community engagement. This funding supports Local Circles and its youth leaders in playing a greater role in influencing the community, including a partnership with Detour Detroit to help youth leaders publish their work. Local Circles will also partner with Grow Detroit’s Young Talent to offer a paid summer experience.

2021

$50,000

Brilliant Detroit

This grant continues operating support to Brilliant Detroit (BD) to strengthen the reach and impact of 313Reads!, Detroit’s Campaign for Grade Level Reading. It will enable and expand community efforts in three areas that have the greatest impact on third-grade reading proficiency: early literacy, school attendance, and school year and summer literacy supports. BD will continue coordinating organizations, resources, and supports through cross-sector partnerships that accelerate community-wide efforts to improve third-grade proficiency across Detroit.

2020

$300,000.00

College for Creative Studies

This grant will provide continued support to the College for Creative Studies (CCS) and its partners in the delivery of the Saturday Arts Academy at Detroit School of Arts (DSA) for 200 middle school youth across Detroit, while strengthening the long-term goal of creating more equitable access to the DSA pathway within the District and beyond. This grant includes a partnership with Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD), Mosaic Youth Theatre of Detroit, the Carr Center, and the Youth Development Resource Center.

2020

$110,000.00

The Center for Michigan, Inc.

This grant will provide general operating support to launch BridgeDetroit, a project of Center for Michigan (Bridge Magazine). Led by Pulitzer Prize-winning Detroit journalist Stephen Henderson, BridgeDetroit will produce public service journalism with local media partners. It will engage Detroiters to identify and respond to the issues they see as crucial to their lives and to their understanding of the city’s civic life. The Foundation invests in local media to ensure Detroit youth and families are informed of and included in public policy and decision making.

2020

$125,000.00

Catchafire Foundation

This grant will support Catchafire to launch a local platform, specific for The Skillman Foundation, that will connect 200 Detroit-area youth-serving nonprofit organizations with virtual, short-term, pro-bono support. Catchafire offers nearly 300 capacity-building options, provided by a national network of more than 12 million consultants, approximately 48,000 of which are in the Detroit area. This pilot will target organizational capacity gaps in the local afterschool ecosystem, leading to improved program quality and impact for youth participants.

2020

$200,000.00

Wayne-Metropolitan Community Action Agency

The purpose of the project is to provide a platform and support tailored to the needs of youth ages 13-24 to develop, refine and exercise their leadership abilities. Pre-Covid Detroit in transition lacked the voice and input of youth in planning its "comeback". The impact and consequences of the changes in the city were invariably impacting the trajectory of young peoples education, opportunity and quality of life. Remaining outside the planning and decision making circles approximates a civic death and perpetuates self sabotaging behavior and hopelessness. Opportunity Youth, living at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities and conditions experience hopelessness and marginalization more profoundly and have fewer opportunities to center their needs among peers, parents, educators, lawmakers and other decision makers. The Covid-19 pandemic and post Covid-19 environment offers both increased likelihood to further marginalize opportunity youth while also providing a once in a generation chance to expand voices, needs of the most vulnerable. Invisibility, at the very least is less likely with the proper support. This project places the small grant platform and related supports in service to provide resources for youth to design projects to consider, promote and advocate for their needs and hopes in ways that are relevant to them. We hope to feature an application process with a variety of application options to appeal to a variety of abilities and strengths. Options will include video, audio, challenge, written and interview application options. We hope to properly equip adult supporters with the capacity to support youth effectively as the owners and decision makers of the project. Adult supporters will be supported in best practices via coaching by seasoned grassroots youth workers. Applications will be evaluated in a forum familiar with youth development and needs. Grantmakers will include educators, youth and grassroots youth leaders. We hope will target youth living at the intersections of multiple marginalized identities and conditions. We will partner with and outreach to organizations serving opportunity youth to reach opportunity youth and support during the project. We hope youth will reach their intended audience which may include adults, educators, decision makers, etc. Technical assistance and capacity building with adult supporters in expected to assist youth with designing activities to reach their targeted audience

2020

$35,000.00

BMe Networks

This grant will continue to support the implementation of the Skillman BMe Vanguard Fellowship, launched in 2019, to cultivate Detroit leaders whose dedication to improving opportunities for young people has earned them the respect of their peers, coworkers, and community. The fellowship trains participants in the art and science of public persuasion to help them tell an accurate story of the vital roles long-time Detroiters and Detroit youth have played in sustaining the city and in building its brilliant future.

2020

$450,000.00

United Way for Southeastern Michigan

The purpose of this grant is to support an expanded education technology fund (the Fund) as part of United Way for Southeastern Michigan (UWSEM)’s COVID response fund in partnership with the Detroit Children’s Fund and other key civic and corporate partners. The Fund will accelerate closing the connectivity and device gap to ensure device access for high school students and funding for K-8 non-Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) schools to enable continued learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Additionally, this grant will provide support to UWSEM to foster these and other collaborative philanthropic efforts of high importance in the region.

2020

$550,000.00

Detroit Public Schools Foundation

This grant contributes to the Connected Futures initiative, ensuring that over 51,000 Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) students and their families have devices, internet connectivity and data plans, and technical support to access curricular materials, online learning tools, and other resources from home. This will provide all DPSCD students with the opportunity to engage in remote learning and promote student academic progress during school closures and out-of-school time.

2020

$2,000,000.00

Center for Success Network

This grant enables Center for Success (CFS) to provide literacy services to students virtually and/or in-person during summer 2020 and the 2020-21 academic year. In partnership with various Detroit organizations, CFS will support 175 kindergarten through fourth-grade students through individualized and small group literacy interventions to accelerate proficiency at seven Brilliant Detroit houses. This grant contributes to increasing grade-level proficiency by expanding access to and engagement in high-quality, individualized literacy supports in and out of school.

2020

$175,000.00

Soar Detroit

This grant enables Soar Detroit to provide continued literacy intervention support services at 10 Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) schools and to forge new partnerships with three Cornerstone charter schools. As schools work to develop plans for how to re-open and operate during the 2020-2021 school year, Soar will continue to serve as invaluable partners to schools in providing in-school literacy interventions to all students in a grade level, either in person or virtually.

2020

$150,000.00

Hope Network

This grant enables Hope Network Michigan Education Corps (MEC) to provide literacy services to 400 kindergarten through third grade students and helps to foster the partnership between MEC and Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) to provide individualized in-school literacy intervention services to partially proficient students during the 2020-21 school year in seven elementary schools. MEC can provide student support programming through an in-person and virtual model, which will be critical in the COVID-19 impacted school year.

2020

$130,000.00

Roeper City and Country School, Inc.

The grant will support a capacity-building collaboration among Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD), the Roeper School (RS) and the Roeper Institute (RI). The project, entitled Matter of Equity (MOE), is a three-year effort created to co-design and train teachers to identify and support affective and cognitive high-potential, high-achieving, and gifted and talented learners. Currently, cohort one involves 20 teachers from Bates Academy, Pulaski Elementary, Communication Media Arts High School, and Southeastern High School. Cohort two (2020-2021 school year) will involve an additional 20 teachers from other DPSCD schools.

2020

$70,000.00

Strategic Community Partners

This grant provides operating support for Teach 313, a jointly funded effort of The Skillman Foundation and Detroit Children’s Fund. Teach313 provides important, cross-sector support to recruit and retain teachers. Strategic Community Partners (SCP), a fiduciary of Metro Solutions, Inc., has been providing leadership and execution of the initiatives. This funding will specifically support the design, execution, and monitoring of the Detroit Teacher Community Support program, a teacher community focused on professional learning and collegial support during this time that is filled with multiple challenges, demands and uncertainties.

2020

$75,000.00

BookNook

This grant enables BookNook to provide literacy services to 500 students, focusing on partially proficient kindergarten through fifth graders during summer 2020 and the 2020-21 school year. Through a tech-based volunteer management system, BookNook will activate a total of 100 mentors to support a small group programming format (one mentor to three students). To execute this work, BookNook established partnerships with the Detroit Parks and Recreation Department, the Community Education Commission, charter schools, and Brilliant Detroit. This grant expands access and engagement to high-quality individualized literacy supports for Detroit students.

2020

$175,000.00