LEO Impact Grants will go toward helping Michigan’s struggling families

Poverty is a rampant issue in the United States. Michigan is no stranger to this issue, with a poverty rate of 13%, making it the 13th highest in the nation. However, the Michigan government has taken note and begun to make steps to help alleviate this problem.

In December 2023 the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity announced the MI Impact Grant program that would distribute $15 million in awards to 10 nonprofit organizations around the state. Each organization had to provide specific programming to qualify for a grant.

“There were 11 joint evaluation committees established, with each one having three people. They were assigned from 13 to 15 grants to review, and scored them out of 100 based on a scoring rubric. All of their scores were averaged and then I looked at the final list of proposed grantees for leadership to review. All of the grantees were divided up into regions throughout the state, just to ensure that there is regional coverage,” says Denise Flannery, a program manager within the office of prosperity at LEO.

Each of the 10 selected organizations was given up to $2 million dollars to help the Michiganders in their regions. The scoring system was used to sift through all the great organizations in the state and ensure the grant money can go to organizations that would have the greatest impact. Each organization was found to address disparities that affect people’s ability to afford necessities. This includes organizations that help with housing, food, childcare, and more. In Kent County the Literacy Center of West Michigan was awarded $1.2 million dollars to continue their work.

 “One thing I would say the organizations all have in common is that they have innovative approaches to the work they do,” says Kimberly Trent, director for prosperity for the LEO.
 
The plan will hopefully lift 100,000 families out of working poverty over the next five years.

“As the prosperity division and the Michigan Poverty Task Force, we're really focused on trying to lift Michiganders out of poverty and get Michigan back to being a prosperous state,” says Trent.

The funding for the Impact Grant program is supported through the American Rescue Plan Act, Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds with a goal to build a strong and equitable recovery after the pandemic. This will be achieved by making investments that support long-term growth and opportunity.

“This program came together in a very fortuitous way. At the beginning of our journey as the Poverty Task Force we talked about solutions to lower the ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) rate, which we use as our measure for poverty rather than just the federal poverty line, because we believe it's a better gauge of how poverty really looks in our state. We’ve found that there are no counties where the ALICE rate is less than 30%. Knowing this, we recognize that there isn’t going to necessarily be just a one-size-fits-all solution. However, considering the federal dollars that came in, we thought it was an appropriate time to try this plan and give out the Impact Grants,” says Trent.

Though these grants were funded by one-time-use federal dollars, the LEO and Poverty Task Force will continue to look for ways to support the work nonprofits do across the state. Especially as the results of the grants come in, new plans can be made going forward. The task force is already looking to the future and considering more ways it can lift up Michigan’s citizens.

“We are partnering with the University of Kansas on a report about how dollars that we spend for our TANF, or our Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which is about $700 million that the state gives out every year to the poorest among us, are utilized. We asked the university to look at how we deploy our dollars and do an analysis. That report will be coming out sometime this spring, and we hope to use the findings to have conversations with stakeholders and with the legislators to make a better, more effective program in our efforts to address poverty in the state and to give struggling Michiganders the support that they need,” says Trent.
 
The full list of organizations given a grant across the state of Michigan can be accessed here.