Grants Awarded
In 2000 the Institute received foundation support for these projects:

• Cutting edge Journalism and 21st-century Communications are the cornerstones of the Institute’s effectiveness. Our magazine, the Great Lakes Bulletin, combines reasoned policy analysis and solutions-oriented commentary with real stories of people and communities working to protect their land, local economies, and quality of life. Our Web site — www.mlui.org — features breaking news and action alerts and serves as a valuable information resource for citizens, policy makers, and the media. Wege Foundation ($35,000), Borwell Foundation ($30,000), Alpern Foundation ($15,000), and Michigan Environmental Council ($5,900)

• The Grassroots Support Center helps local citizen groups across the state develop effective organizing and communications strategies. Trained Institute staff help these groups develop clear messages, communicate with media and lawmakers, raise funds, and build coalitions. Since 1997 our Grassroots Support Center has played a role in assisting dozens of public interest organizations and launching many others. Clannad Foundation ($17,000)

• The Elm Street Writers Group is a select corps of nationally prominent writers, including Institute staff, whose commentary on sprawl and Smart Growth solutions goes out to the nation’s largest newspapers, to national and local public radio stations, and to Web sites, newsletters, and magazines. Elm Street Writers Group columns are exciting, penetrating, and readable opinion pieces specifically designed to quickly counter critics and simultaneously build public support for Smart Growth. Surdna Foundation ($40,000)

• Weak oversight of massive Factory Farms in Michigan has resulted in polluted rivers and divided communities. The Institute is working with rural families and communities around the state to call for better management of livestock waste, greater government accountability, and increased coordination of livestock factory development with local land use plans. Kellogg Foundation ($30,000)

• The Institute’s Great Lakes Shoreline Protection Project is part of a multi-partner effort to help safeguard the sensitive habitat of the Great Lakes coastline. Our role is to develop a model local zoning ordinance, as well as educational materials. The ordinance includes provisions to control erosion, preserve special natural features, safeguard endangered species habitat, and protect property values. Great Lakes Protection Fund ($45,000) and Seabury Foundation ($34,600)

• The Institute’s Natural Rivers Project builds public support for reviving the Michigan Natural River Program, a visionary state initiative started in 1970 to maintain the clarity and unspoiled character of the state’s wildest rivers. The Michigan law is a model of cooperation between state regulators, local government, and private landowners. But property rights debates have blocked greater use of the program. The Institute is working with officials and residents throughout the state to protect and strengthen the Natural River Program. Frey Foundation ($50,000) and Patagonia Inc. ($10,000)

• The Institute launched the Public Trust Alliance project in 1996 to counter the notion that land use rules and environmental regulations are invasions of “private property” and to promote the fact that healthy communities and their economies depend on responsible resource use. The Institute is working to expose the trend in Michigan and across the country of governmental agencies skirting and undermining regulations. It is involved in state and national efforts to build public awareness of the problem and to promote better enforcement of environmental laws. Deer Creek Foundation ($75,000)

• The Institute’s statewide Transportation and Land Use Coalition of 30 organizations works to increase public support for alternatives to wasteful, damaging highway spending and for broader transportation choices. The coalition’s top five priorities are to 1) increase public transit funding 2) increase public involvement in the decision-making process 3) fix existing roads before building news ones 4) better integrate transportation and land use planning and 5) preserve railroad corridors. The Joyce Foundation ($171,000)

• General Support covers certain expenses, such as board meetings, general telephone costs, fundraising, and other activities that do not fall under a specific project heading but are important to keeping the Institute in business. Generoso Pope Foundation ($10,000)

The Michigan Land Use Institute staff and board are grateful for the financial support and professional trust that these foundations have put into our work.