The Office of Development and Grants is a division of the Office of the Chief Financial Officer. The Development team is embedded in the Mayor’s Office, and facilitates fundraising, grant-writing, and fund development for projects prioritized by City departments and their key partners. The Grants team provides oversight and project management support for City departments with active grants.
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Lydia Rae Levinson serves as Deputy Chief Development Officer and is responsible managing the team of Development Officers and for building strategic partnerships to secure public and private investment in support of the top priorities of City of Detroit department directors and the Mayor. She draws upon her own experience working for and alongside grassroots organizers, block clubs, farmers, and CDCs in urban and rural communities to support sustainable, equitable solutions that address local challenges. Ms. Levinson holds two Masters degrees: one in Community and Regional Planning and one in Sustainable Agriculture, both from Iowa State University. Prior to joining the City of Detroit, she most recently served as Director of Grants at Eastern Market Partnership (EMP)—the nation’s largest and oldest public market—where she was responsible for developing and managing the grants portfolios of EMP and its subsidiary development corporation.
Sajjiah Parker serves as Assistant Director of Grants. In this capacity, Ms. Parker and her team coordinate the planning and administration of federal, state and private grants, as well as tracking donations, sponsorships and other private investments that enhance the quality of life for Detroit residents. Ms. Parker and her team are fervent in efforts to achieve the city’s vision of innovative and effective Grants programming and cross-program alignment of funding to expand impact, and are making great strides. Ms. Parker comes to the city with over 7 years of professional managerial experience in program implementation, grants management, and in leading systemic change initiatives in the non-profit sector. Prior to working for the City, Ms. Parker worked at Southwest Solutions as the Manager of the Coordinated Assessment Model (CAM) for the Detroit Continuum of Care. In this role Ms. Parker was instrumental in leveraging resources, and fostering the cooperation and coordination of all community partners to achieve the goal of improving how homeless households are served. While she served the Supportive Services for Veteran’s Families (SSVF) grant program, the agency was nationally recognized and designated as a Mentor Agency for Best Practices in the veteran homeless program delivery.
Chris A. Jones serves as Assistant Director of Grants. In this capacity, Mr. Jones and his team are responsible for reviewing reimbursement requests from sub-recipients for allowability prior to payment, ensuring close-outs of grants are done systematically and consistently, and provide hands-on audit support for departments to make sure they have policies/procedures/best practices in place. With over 10 years of combined experience in the non-profit, private, and public sector, Mr. Jones has a strong background in the project management life cycle for grants from various funders.
Mr. Jones holds a B.A. in Architecture from the University of Detroit Mercy and a Master’s in Public Administration with a focus in Law & Public Policy and Local Government Management for Sustainable Communities.
Abby LaFramboise serves as Assistant Director of Grants - Implementation. As a Master's in Public Administration graduate, Ms. LaFramboise seeks to advance management practices and policies that allow the government to run more effectively and efficiently. Throughout her career, in both the private and public sectors, Ms. LaFramboise has been driven to lead dynamic and collaborative teams. Ms. LaFramboise and her team are passionate about helping departments achieve successful project implementation and ensuring that grants remain on track with performance, spending, and reporting requirements. Through these efforts, the team encourages good stewardship of grant funding, and ultimately, helps to maximize the impact of public and philanthropic grant funds in the City of Detroit.
Ms. LaFramboise holds an MPA from Wayne State University and a Bachelor of Science from Michigan State University.
Karen C. Brown has played key executive, fund development and board leadership roles in Detroit’s community development sector throughout her career. As the Detroit Public Safety Foundation’s Director of Grants from 2011-2016, Ms. Brown was instrumental in helping the City of Detroit’s Police and Fire Departments secure over $62 million in government grants. Ms. Brown graduated summa cum laude from the University of Detroit with a BA in Philosophy. She holds certificates in Community Economic Development from the Pratt Institute and Management from the University of Wisconsin’s Center for Cooperatives. Ms. Brown serves as an adjunct professor in the University of Detroit Mercy’s Masters in Community Development Program where she teaches organizational development and grant writing. In 2009, Ms. Brown was honored with a Spirit of Detroit Award in acknowledgement of her Outstanding Community Leadership. She's the mother of two daughters and a proud 30 year resident of Detroit's Greenacres neighborhood.
Claire Huttenlocher serves as a Development Officer for the City of Detroit, and is responsible for building partnerships to secure corporate, philanthropic and public investment in city priorities across departments and agencies. Prior experiences at the Kresge Foundation, Living Cities Inc., Midtown Detroit Inc. and the FCA Foundation allowed Ms. Huttenlocher to build skills in grant writing, project management and community engagement.
Ms. Huttenlocher is a proud alumna of Challenge Detroit, a leadership and professional development program dedicated to engaging and serving communities across the city. Through the fellowship, she applied human-centered design principles to provide local nonprofits with strategic recommendations for further development, with topics ranging from sustainability and youth development to place-based entrepreneurship.
Ms. Huttenlocher graduated with honors from Washington University in St. Louis with a BA in Urban Studies, and spent a semester at The University of Oxford studying urban economic theory and global urban development. She is a native Michigander and is passionate about making city initiatives stronger and more accessible through innovative funding strategies.
Adaora Ezike serves as a Development Officer and is responsible for building strategic public-private partnerships to secure corporate, philanthropic, and public investment in Mayoral and City department priorities. Ms. Ezike has over a decade of experience centering racial equity in collective impact initiatives, digital literacy and data use, and community care models. Adaora Ezike holds her Bachelor of Science in Medical Anthropology from the University of California, Riverside, and Master of Health Science from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She also earned four graduate certificates from Johns Hopkins in Public Health Informatics; Health Disparities & Health Inequality; Health & Human Rights; and Community-Based Public Health from the Departments of Health Policy & Management, Epidemiology, and Health, Behavior, and Society. Ms. Ezike is a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional and integrates behavioral health equity in economic mobility and community development strategies.
For Detroit, raising $1 billion in public and private grant funds, donations and investments is no small feat. This $1 billion funds projects that positively
Org Chart for Office of Development and Grants
