Who We Are
The Kresge Foundation is a $3.1 billion private, national foundation that seeks to influence the quality of life for future generations through its support of nonprofit organizations in six fields of interest: health, the environment, community development, arts and culture, education and human services.
We are headquartered in metropolitan Detroit, in the suburb community of Troy, Michigan. In 2009, the Board of Trustees approved 404 awards totaling $197 million; $167 million was paid out to grantees over the course of the year.
Our history
In 1924, Sebastian Spering Kresge established the foundation that bears his name for the “promotion of human progress.” For more than 80 years, this mandate was realized through the support of fundraising campaigns to build 
capital projects – libraries, hospitals, schools, museums, community centers and the like – that, over the years, have contributed to the creation of our nation’s nonprofit infrastructure.
In recent years, we have expanded our grantmaking to more directly help small, mid-size and large nonprofit organizations that cater specifically to the needs of poor, disadvantaged and disenfranchised individuals, families and communities. To facilitate this work, we have expanded our funding methods beyond our signature challenge grant, in order to gain greater flexibility in providing organizations with support in the form they most need it.
Values-centered grantmaking
Our grantmaking decisions are guided by our values criteria. The values aim to create access and advance opportunity for marginalized populations, promote community impact in ways most needed by residents, cultivate innovation and risk taking, support interdisciplinary solutions, reach underserved locales, foster environmental sustainability, and encourage nonprofit boards and their staffs to reflect the racial, ethnic and gender diversity of the people they serve.
Flexible funding methods
As the issues facing communities and individuals have grown increasingly more complex and nuanced, so too have Kresge’s grantmaking methods. In 2008, we began exploring the use of an expanded array of funding methods, and now award, along with facilities capital, growth capital, operating support, and program support. In addition, we make program-related investments, or loans, to nonprofit organizations and award planning grants, or seed money, for business planning, market analysis and other aspects of launching or spinning off a new nonprofit.
Kresge family involvement
For more than eight decades, the Kresge family has provided guidance and inspiration for the foundation that Sebastian Kresge launched with an initial gift of $1.6 million. As his business interests evolved from the five-and-10-cent store he opened with
John G. McCrory to a chain of stores incorporated in 1912 as the S.S. Kresge Company (many years later known as Kmart), Sebastian remained committed to the idea of charitable giving. He chaired the first foundation board meeting and then served as treasurer until his death in 1966, at age 99. By then, Sebastian had contributed $60.5 million to the foundation.
During the ensuing years, his son, Stanley Sebastian Kresge; grandson, Bruce A. Kresge; and granddaughters, Deborah McDowell, Katherine Lutey and Susan Drewes, all have served on the Kresge board of trustees. In total, the board is comprised of 13 trustees, all of whom have never lost sight of the fact that this highly regarded national institution is also a family foundation.
A final word from Sebastian Kresge
“Giving away money is not an easy job,” Sebastian once observed. “Money alone cannot build character or transform evil into good; it cannot restore the influence and vitality of the home; neither can it maintain the valleys and plains of peace. Spent alone, it might as well stay in the vaults… It cries for full partnership with leaders of character and good will.”