The Skillman Foundation’s tagline sums up its mission: “Fierce champions of Detroit’s children.”
Skillman isn’t as well known as some of the major funders it works alongside in Detroit; the city has been a priority for some of the largest philanthropies in the country. The Kresge Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, for example, have a large presence in Detroit, but also maintain a national profile. Skillman, however, keeps its sights firmly set on the welfare of children and families in the Detroit region, and within that scope, finds plenty to do.
What it may lack in notoriety, it makes up for with dedication to the cause. At over 60 years old, the Skillman Foundation is fueled by the fortune Robert Skillman amassed as one of the early leaders of corporate giant 3M. After Robert’s death in 1945, his widow, Rose Skillman, donated widely to organizations that benefited children. In 1960, she created the Skillman Foundation, where she served as president, and remained a trustee until her death in 1983.
Now, with an endowment of about $600 million, Skillman will give $22 million in grants this year, its largest annual distribution ever.
Here are some key things to know about the Skillman Foundation, its work, and where it’s headed.
The foundation has a new president and CEO—and she hit the ground running.
Angelique Power joined Skillman in September 2021. Power, who grew up in Chicago, was formerly the president of the Field Foundation of Illinois, which doubled the size of its giving and programming under her leadership. Her work, both inside and outside philanthropy, has emphasized social justice and racial equity.
Power started working at Skillman during the pandemic, which she says had some unexpected benefits. “This is a moment when collectively — as individuals and institutions — we’re asking ourselves, what can we do in this moment that will create meaningful and lasting change?” she said. “And so entering into this city that has been doing such thoughtful work, entering into a foundation that has been carefully cultivated from board to staff to community relationships over 60 years — it really felt like coming home.”
After she took the job, Power and her staff embarked on a listening tour around Detroit. They’ve met with teachers, principals, after-school leaders, grassroots activists, civic leaders, and many, many young people. “This isn’t a didactic journey to get to where I believe everyone should go,” Power said. “This is an all-hands-on-deck moment to figure this out together. I think often in philanthropy, we sit in our conference rooms and we take an antiseptic and academic approach to solving community problems. This moment is really about collectively understanding the reality that if you are sick, I am sick. And if you thrive, I thrive.”
Power says the listening sessions have been transformative. “They are making us smarter and better,” she said. “I had committed to a year of doing listening sessions. Now, we’re six months in, and we’re telling each other, ‘We are not stopping, we are going to continue.’”
In a blog post published in January, Power outlined “7 Steps for 2022 and Beyond,” which lays out the organization’s goals going forward. All the information gathering and strategizing that has gone into Power’s first year at Skillman will culminate in July of this year, when the foundation will conduct a series of retreats with board and staff members to formulate its goals.
“From those sessions we hope to emerge with what our plan will be for the next few years,” Power said. “The board has already agreed that we will set aside additional dollars to accomplish those goals.”
It’s Detroit-based — and proud of it
Children and youth in Detroit were always a Skillman priority, but in 1998, the board made it official. “The foundation decided to focus solely and explicitly here in the city, and to really look at Black and brown children who live so far below the poverty line,” Power said. “And that’s not going to change: We’re a place based foundation.”
Power acknowledges that Detroit has many problems—including poverty, environmental issues, and more—but she sees tremendous promise there too.
“Detroit vs. Everybody” is a popular city slogan, and it conveys the sense of defiant pride that Power says characterizes Detroiters today. “What it really means is Detroit versus the nonbelievers, Detroit versus the doubters,” she said. “Because the people who are here today are here for the collective good. That is something you see fraying nationally. Detroit is a city that has a visceral memory of being in bankruptcy, of the schools being in emergency management, and there’s a commitment by the private sector and the public sector, the nonprofit and philanthropic sector, to build Detroit in an equitable way. People bleed Detroit. No matter where you live, in Detroit metro or in the city, everybody wants Detroit and Detroiters to win. There is a lot of visionary and futuristic work happening here.”
For Skillman, helping Detroit win means improving its children’s futures through multiple programs, including its Good Schools Initiative, which identified and supported high-performing schools, and Good Neighborhood Initiative, which improved conditions for children in six Detroit neighborhoods. The foundation offers small grants to local programs that support young people (the grantees were selected by neighborhood residents), and helped establish the Detroit Children’s Fund to increase corporate, philanthropic and individual support for Detroit schools. (See an overview and timeline of Skillman programs here.)
It’s K-12 focused, charter and non-charter
Skillman does some work in the early childhood space—it’s part of the Southeast Michigan Early Childhood Funders Collaborative, for example—but emphasizes K-12 education, because that’s where it sees the greatest need.
“Over the past 30 years, Detroit Public Schools lost two-thirds of the student population,” Power points out. “It was held under state emergency management for a decade. Today, there are just as many district schools as there are charter schools. So a lot of investors stay away from K-12, because if you invest only in the school district, it doesn’t reach all of the kids.”
Skillman has kept its focus on Detroit’s school system precisely because it is so complicated, and the foundation has tried to sidestep the political fray over public versus charter schools. “Skillman took a position pretty early on to say we are supporting Detroit children and youth wherever they are,” Power said. “We’re supporting quality seats wherever the child and the family decide to go. We were an early supporter of K through 12; it’s a distinguishing point for Skillman.”
Skillman is trying out participatory grantmaking
A number of funders nationwide are now experimenting with participatory grantmaking, that is, including community members in grantmaking decisions, and Skillman recently gave it a try.
The Skillman Foundation has a President’s Youth Council, an advisory committee of Detroit youth, which meets regularly with the organization’s leadership to raise issues and discuss strategies. Last year, Skillman gave the group a fund to distribute, and the young people conducted research to select organizations they wanted to support, making their selections via ranked-choice voting.
“It was great,” Power said. “We put $100,000 on the table, and said, ‘You’re the philanthropists, you’re the grantmakers. We’re not doing this to teach you our ways; we’re giving this to you so we can learn how you would do it.’” Skillman plans to continue this approach, and is hoping to increase the council’s grantmaking budget.
Fierce champions of youth — even in court
For Skillman, championing young people means listening to them and giving them a greater voice—not just in funding decisions, but in decisions that affect their individual and collective futures.
For example, the Skillman Foundation supported the seven young people who brought the “Right to Literacy” lawsuit in 2016 against the state of Michigan. The suit argued that literacy is a constitutionally protected right, and that their inadequate schools were violating that right. The case was ultimately dismissed in court, but Gov. Gretchen Whitmore agreed to a settlement. Skillman supported the legal fees for the Detroit youth’s case, submitted an amicus brief on their behalf, and worked closely with them and the governor’s office to gain a settlement.
Power, for one, has high hopes for young people. “During the pandemic in 2020, watching these global uprisings that were happening, I noticed that so many of them were led by young people,” she said. “In particular, Black and brown young people were at the forefront leading these multiracial, multi-generational coalitions that were demanding full scale systems change. Maybe we need young people to lead us somewhere new.”
