The Kresge Foundation is a $3.5 billion private, national foundation that works to expand opportunities in America's cities through grant-making and investing in arts and culture, education, environment, health, human services, community development in Detroit.

In collaboration with their grantees and partners, they seek to use these grant-making and investing tools to create pathways for vulnerable people to improve their life circumstances and join the economic mainstream.

In 2014, the Board of Trustees approved 408 awards totaling $242.5 million. That included a $100 million award to the Foundation for Detroit’s Future, a fund created to soften the impact of the city’s bankruptcy on pensioners and safeguard cultural assets at the Detroit Institute of Arts. A total of $138.1 million was paid out to grantees over the course of the year. In addition, their Social Investment Practice made commitments totaling $20.4 million in 2014.

Kresge is a strategic philanthropy. They employ an array of funding methods to address and advance a set of well-defined programmatic objectives. They focus their efforts in and around the nation’s cities.

Program Areas
They have seven, narrowly defined programs that each in its own way works to improve the life circumstances of poor and low-income children and adults and those living in underserved communities.

Arts & Culture

• -Harvesting Leading Practices

Community Development
Detroit

• -Detroit arts and culture
• -Education reform
• -Entrepreneurial development: Growing small business
• -Green economy: Sustainable city
• -Health
• -Mass transit: M-1 Rail
• -Complete neighborhoods
• -City land use
• -Anchor institutions: Woodward creative corridor

Education

• -Pathways to and through college
• -Strengthening institutions
• -Higher education in South Africa 

Environment

• -Helping communities build environmental, economic and social resilience in the face of climate change 

Health

• -Accelerating community-centered approaches in health
• -Developing healthy places

Human Services

• -Advancing the effectiveness and resilience of multiservice organizations
• -Leveraging the effectiveness of networks

Their energies are focused on:

• -Creating access and opportunity in underserved communities.
• -Improving the health of low-income people.
• -Promoting arts and culture in community revitalization.
• -Increasing college achievement.
• -Assisting in the revitalization of Detroit.
• -Addressing the consequences and causes of climate change