The view from the 16th floor of One Campus Martius says a lot about Detroit—its grit, its progress, and its unfinished business. But on this morning, the skyline was met with something even more powerful: an unfiltered conversation that stretched far beyond Michigan. The Michigan Chronicle’s Pancakes & Politics Forum 2 wasn’t business as usual. It was national in scale, local in impact, and deeply personal for the communities caught in the crossfire of political chaos and federal disinvestment.
For the first time in the forum’s 20-year history, national voices were flown in to sit beside Michigan’s most respected local leaders. The panel consisted of Nicole Sherard-Freeman, President of Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, Don Graves, former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce, David Egner, President and CEO of Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation, Kelly Kuhn, President and CEO Michigan Nonprofit Association, and Michael T. Pugh, national CEO Local Initiatives Support Corporation. Their charge: confront the consequences of vanishing federal support, dissect the urgency of the current political climate, and offer strategy that bridges national discourse with community needs.
This second installment of the season carried a different kind of weight. Not only because of the long-term significance of the series, but because the financial and institutional systems that hold communities together are shifting—and not for the better. Nonprofits, local governments, and working-class families are bracing for more disruption. The panelists understood this wasn’t just a dialogue—it was a directive.
Dennis Archer Jr. opened the forum as moderator, grounding the room with the same commanding presence and curiosity that’s marked his role from the very beginning. His tone challenged panelists to speak plainly, think boldly, and ground their insights in reality. Archer quickly raised a cultural and economic question rooted in the Black experience—referencing The Banker, an Apple TV film based on the true story of two Black brothers in the 1960s who built a bank to counteract racist lending systems. Turning to David Egner, he asked plainly: “If you and I walk into a bank wearing the same suit, do you believe a white man would walk out with a higher loan than I would because I’m Black? Fast forward to today and our future, is there a real threat to the banking industry and Fair Lending Act?”
That question, deeply personal yet policy-relevant, anchored the morning.
Pugh, a national leader in finance, brought the conversation back to infrastructure and investment. His remarks highlighted the urgency of building systems that go beyond housing. “If you support and provide housing, you have to provide the wrap-around services of a healthy ecosystem,” Pugh said. “We must focus on strategic investments. Local leadership is vital because they know what’s happening in the community. And when it comes to affordable housing, everyone in the room must advocate for the Community Reinvestment Act. We need CDFIs to have a strong presence. We have to continue talking about investment impact when we talk about CRA.”
That message wasn’t abstract. Detroit and other majority-Black cities are experiencing a slow erosion of trust in financial systems and civic leadership. Without federal guardrails, those cracks become canyons.
Archer then shifted the discussion from economics to policy chaos. He addressed the elephant in the room: President Trump’s recent post criticizing Harvard and calling to strip the university’s funding, labeling it “a joke” that teaches “hate and stupidity.” Archer’s question to Don Graves landed hard: “What the hell is happening in D.C.?”
Graves didn’t hold back. “This is not a blip. This is the new reality. We are entering a fundamental revolution in how we operate,” he said. “The U.S. was once the global economic leader because of a rules-based international order. It protected human rights, worker rights, and used the best capital system in the world. We operated on predictability, transparency, and clarity. Now that’s being swept away.”
His response peeled back the layers of political dysfunction. “There is an attack on every institution—governance, higher education, the legal system. The governing principle is chaos. For nonprofits and businesses, the ability to conduct work with certainty is gone,” Graves said. “We must now get our community institutions to work together. We can’t assume that the federal government will provide what it used to. This is our opportunity to start a revolution in how we think. Why rebuild the same systems when we can build new ones?”
The conversation widened, touching on manufacturing, inflation, and American economic competitiveness. Archer asked Graves whether there was a better way to encourage reshoring manufacturing—especially in cities like Detroit, with legacy industries struggling to transition.
Graves made it clear that yesterday’s model won’t return. “The manufacturing that’s returning will be powered by AI. We will not see a return to the Detroit auto boom days. It will drive up inflation and make products more expensive for Americans. Our allies have told us, ‘We love you, but we can’t work with you right now.’ They are choosing China because its policies are more consistent.”
Sherard-Freeman, Detroit’s former jobs and economy chief, responded with a Detroit-first mindset. She reminded the audience that this city has a track record of delivering even when counted out. “Think about FCA, Amazon, Factory Zero. When they came to Detroit, they didn’t think we had the workforce. But look at us now. We’ve proven that when given a challenge, we find a solution,” she said. “We may have twenty minutes left to fix this. There are small opportunities, and we have to seize them. I wouldn’t have gone about it this way, but this is our moment. We need to build again.”
Egner cut into one of the more dangerous narratives—the obsession with efficiency. “Efficiency is the wrong metric,” he warned. “When we reduce everything to efficiency, we lose sight of what really matters.”
Kuhn offered a broader lens on Michigan’s nonprofit sector, which employs one in ten workers statewide. “Ten percent of Michigan’s workforce is tied to the nonprofit sector. Forty percent of that is in the seven-county region. Nonprofits touch every issue—name one, and there’s a nonprofit addressing it,” she said. “Ninety percent of nonprofits run on federal funding. If Harvard, with its resources, can be targeted, what does that mean for the rest of us? What happens to the organizations that rely on volunteers, small grants, and overworked staff to fill community gaps? What happens to them when funding disappears?”
Her remarks exposed the depth of vulnerability across institutions and communities, while also highlighting the ripple effect federal policy decisions have on the ground. Angelique Power, President and CEO of The Skillman Foundation, made that reality crystal clear.
“It is not hyperbole to say that federal cuts to our very critical nonprofit organizations will hit hard and will hit those who need support the most,” Power said. “Remember that nonprofits are after-school programs, food banks, veterans’ services, health centers, and more. They are run by the hardest working humans who are driven by service to others. They are first responders to community needs. Due to the federal cuts, there will be pain, and it will be on each of us to own and to try to ease this.”
Pugh closed the loop on private-public collaboration. “There’s a proven case that when the public and private sectors work together, this country can move forward,” he said. “But when threats get introduced into that system, there’s a residual impact on real people—both nationally and locally.”
This second forum of the season didn’t just extend a legacy—it expanded it. Twenty years after its founding, Pancakes & Politics continues to raise the right questions, gather the right minds, and push toward the right conversations. But this time, the conversation isn’t just about what needs to happen. It’s about how quickly we must move.
Because Detroit isn’t waiting for Washington to get its act together.
We’ve done that before.
Now, it’s about protecting the systems we built, defending the voices that have always been first to show up, and asking—loudly, clearly—what future we’re willing to fight for.
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