A Detroit Charity Fighting Homelessness Gets a Big Grant From a Surprising Source
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Detroit’s skyline. Linda Parton/shutterstock
A Catholic charity seeking to end chronic homelessness in Detroit has been awarded $7 million from a small family foundation dedicated to the memory of a 16-year-old girl who passed away in 1998. It’s a somewhat surprising grant from a funder that is not in Detroit—the Julia Burke Foundation is based in California and Hawaii—but indicative of a far-reaching effort to carry on the memory of a loved one.
The Julia Burke Foundation was launched by parents Marilyn and Jerry Burke after Julia’s tragic death in a car crash. The foundation’s stated purpose is to serve “as a vehicle to support causes of interest to Julia, preferably in ways that perpetuate her memory and influence,” according to the foundation’s website.
Julia’s influence will definitely be felt by Detroit’s Pope Francis Center, which announced that the $7 million grant has now roughly doubled progress toward the nonprofit’s $22 million fundraising goal. The money will contribute to a planned “bridge” housing complex in which the center plans to provide services including counseling, medical care and job-readiness services, in addition to a gym, a library and classrooms.
The Julia Burke Foundation is a modest funder, but one that’s been around for over 20 years now, giving to a wide range of causes, from the fight against mass incarceration to genomic research. The grant’s announcement states that the foundation is based in California, but it also lists contact information in Hawaii.
The Pope Francis Center isn’t the only organization serving people who are experiencing poverty and/or homelessness that has received funding from the Burke Foundation. Its website and 2020 newsletter list gifts to nonprofits providing crisis services, rehabilitation for former gang members and support for both formerly incarcerated and first-generation college students, among other underserved populations.
Burke was also one of a number of funders that stepped up when the last federal administration fell short in providing aid during the COVID pandemic. The foundation supported the nonprofit Troops Direct to supply personal protective equipment to National Guard units across the U.S. “when government fulfillments for protective and sanitation equipment were trailing by months,” according to the foundation’s 2020 newsletter.
Burke calls its COVID-response efforts “Operation Julia” and notes on its website that it has accelerated grantmaking locally, regionally and nationally in response to the public health crisis.
In a statement announcing the Francis Center grant, Jerry Burke said that the foundation “invests in opportunities that enable people to lead a better life.”
“The more we learned about the Pope Francis Center and its commitment to serving Detroit’s poor, we knew we wanted to be a part of this transformational project that will improve the lives of so many,” he said.
A wide range of interests
The Julia Burke Foundation—like so many funders in the past year—shifted focus to emergency services, but the organization continued to support its other key priorities.
Julia Burke took part in debate while in school, and her namesake foundation continued supporting debate-related groups, including the National Speech & Debate Association, Bay Area Urban Debate League and Los Angeles Metropolitan Debate League. Julia played the flute, and in 2020, the foundation made room in its budget to fund a virtual summer jazz workshop in California.
But Burke Foundation gifts also went to MIT for projects including the development of prosthetic feet and low-energy drip irrigation; a group supporting healthcare workers and schoolchildren in Nigeria; an online and cable program that tells stories about gifted preachers; and UC Davis’ MIND Institute, which researches neurodevelopmental disabilities.
The foundation has also created several specific memorial funds, including funds named after Julia Burke’s grandparents, an endowment fund for debate to benefit Julia’s former college prep school, and a fund dedicated to supporting her rowing team in Oakland, California.
In addition to information about its areas of funding and current initiatives, the Julia Burke Foundation’s website is full of information about its namesake and additional efforts to keep her memory alive. There are speeches about Julia Burke, an annual memorial walk in her honor (which was canceled in 2020), and a list of debating awards in her name.
The gift to the Pope Francis Center appears to be an outlier in terms of grant size. The foundation’s latest tax filings show that in 2018, it moved more than $1.4 million, and Candid data shows the largest gift made that year was $410,500, with most of the remaining grants divided between the four- and five-figure range.
It’s hard to say whether the grant is a sign of larger giving to come, but it’s an interesting example of a family’s philanthropy reaching beyond the donors’ immediate sphere, following on the heels of increased giving in the response to the pandemic. That’s something we may be seeing more of in the post-COVID fallout.
