To mark the end of the second year of our Investment in Families Initiative, we’re excited to share our Year Two Impact Report, highlighting key findings, expanded policy priorities and goals for the year ahead. In the second year of the initiative, Family Leaders experienced greater day-to-day financial stability, deeper community connection and more breathing room to plan for their children’s futures, while continuing to navigate rising costs, debt stress, and systems that too often work around and against rather than for them.
Launched in 2024, IIF is a ten-year, $10 million participatory research partnership with 30 Family Leaders, all Kent County mothers. The Initiative pairs monthly direct cash transfers and wraparound supports with a longer-term goal: changing how systems behave so they work for families. In its second year, the Initiative moved from listening to organizing and identified three policy priorities to pursue over the next 18 months.
“Year Two showed us what felt difference looks like. Families have more breathing room – food on the table, bills paid on time, a cushion for emergencies and more time to be present with their kids,” said Dr. Daniel Williams, president of the Steelcase Foundation. Family Leaders aren’t asking for more programs layered onto a system that works against them. They’re asking for the conditions to change, and their experience is now shaping an agenda to do exactly that.”
“What sets IIF apart is not the cash transfer itself, but using cash as a harm-reduction strategy, coupled with the model around it. Most family policy is built from the outside in, with experts designing solutions based on assumptions about what families need,” said Dr. Anissa Eddie, director of foundation-led initiatives at the Steelcase Foundation. “IIF is built inside-out: Family Leaders bring their lived experience directly into research design, program development and public narrative, and success is measured by the felt difference families experience in their daily lives rather than only by externally imposed benchmarks.”
“Through the Investment in Families Initiative, 30 of us are working together to shape what comes next out of our lived experiences,” said Shirley Arill, a Family Leader and a member of the Narrative Advisory Group within the Initiative. “Families across Michigan have always deserved the chance to tell their own stories, and Year 2 has given us the opportunity to inform this work and reshape the narratives that surround us.”
Click below to read the full Year Two Impact Report and its policy priorities for the coming year. For questions about the initiative, please contact Dr. Anissa Eddie at anissae@steelcasefoundation.org.
