Office of Development and Grants Staff

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Terri Daniels

Deputy CFO/Office of Development and Grants Director

Julianna Smoot

Chief Development Officer

Sajjiah Parker

Assistant Director, Grants

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.

Abby Laframboise

Deputy Director of Grants

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

Development Officer

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

Development Officer

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

Development Officer

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.

City of Detroit

Office of Development and Grants Staff

Terri Daniels

Julianna Smoot

Sajjiah Parker

Abby Laframboise

Karen C. Brown

Claire Huttenlocher

Adaora Ezike

Documents

2014-2019 Impact Report Office of Development and Grants City of Detroit

Org Chart

Contacts City Directory