Groundwork—originally christened Michigan Land Use Institute—turned 30 on Earth Day 2025, and we’re happy to be celebrating the day with you. To pay tribute to the big three-oh, we put together a list of 30 highlights from Groundwork’s years on the planet (not easy paring this list down to just 30, friends).
Also very important, an anonymous donor has offered a generous match of $10,000 for all new and increased gifts to honor the Groundwork legacy and help propel this work into the future. By clicking over to our donation page, you can offer a gift and have it matched dollar for dollar! Might we suggest $30?
Here we go. Thirty achievements for 30 years! When organization co-founder Keith Schneider reflected on his suggested list of achievements, he wrote: “A lot of work. A boat load of fun. And exceptional in its various public interest advances.” Amen.
Big thanks for achievement ideas submitted by Keith Schneider, Diane Conners, Kelly Thayer, Jim Dulzo, Ashley Rudzinski, Jen Schaap, Jim Bruckbauer and Hans Voss, whose suggestions are presented lightly edited below.
(Also, well, OK … full disclosure, we actually couldn’t pare the list down to 30, so you receive 16 bonus achievements at the end.)
And thank you so much for your stalwart support across all these 30 years. It is not an exaggeration to say this work would not happen without you!
Cheers to the better world you bring,
Jeff Smith
Communications Director
1 April 22, 1995—MLUI co-founder Keith Schneider, a New York Times environmental reporter, and Florence Barone, convene the first board meeting of the Michigan Land Use Institute in Benzonia, formally launching the organization on the 25th anniversary of Earth Day. Per the organization’s founding document: to safeguard the land and life of northwest Michigan by managing population growth, natural resource and agricultural policies, and the negative environmental impact of suburban sprawl.
2 July 15, 1995—MLUI director Keith Schneider invites Hans Voss to join the staff of the Institute, promising the 27-year-old Michigan State graduate $500 a month to start, lodging in MLUI’s Benzonia office, and a grassroots organizing job that will be “the most rewarding, exciting, adventurous professional experience of your career.” Hans accepted. The office: a big old house at the top of the hill in Benzonia—once a one-room schoolhouse that a developer wanted to tear down to build a McDonald’s.
3 August 5, 1995—MlUI’s MCLUC Reporter publishes an investigative report (http://www.mlui.org/downloads/7mcluc.pdf) on the “sweetheart deal” the Michigan DNR quietly reached with the natural gas industry to allow developers to write off production costs before paying royalties and fees into the Natural Resources Trust Fund. The private deal drained $4 million to $8 million annually from the fund, derived from oil and gas revenues, that paid for public improvements to land, water, parks, and shorelines. The article spurs a powerful response from citizens, led the DNR to cancel the deal, immediately closed the hole in Trust Fund revenue, and prompted Attorney General Frank Kelley to launch an investigation and lawsuit that clawed back $5 million from natural gas developers. Closing the huge drain in Trust Fund revenue led to significant new investments in resources accessible to the public—roughly $200 million since 1995—including development of the 10,000-acre Arcadia Dunes preserve along the Lake Michigan shoreline in Benzie County.
4 June 18, 1996—MLUI published “The Homestead Swap”( http://www.mlui.org/downloads/duneswap.pdf) to block a change to the boundary of Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore that would have enabled Homestead Resort owner Robert Kuras to build a golf course in the national park. The report prompted Congress to enact legislation to secure the park’s original boundary and prevent golf course construction.
5 July 14,1996—Margaret O’Dell, the environment program director of the Chicago-based Joyce Foundation, calls Keith Schneider with organization-transforming news. The foundation, she said, approved a two-year $160,000 grant to tame the rapacious practices by Michigan’s natural gas sector that was tearing asunder the northern forests of the Lower Peninsula. The call from O’Dell is the essential moment that launches the Michigan Land Use Institute on its financially stable path to public interest relevance.
6 April, 1997—Michigan Land Use Institute launches campaign to defend the state Natural Rivers Program from attack from the state Senate and publishes a series of reports explaining the benefits of natural river designation to communities, environment, and economy. At the time, Michigan had eight designated natural rivers; today it has 18.
http://www.mlui.org/mlui/news-views/articles-from-1995-to-2012.html?archive_id=1266
http://www.mlui.org/downloads/naturalrivers.pdf
7 1998 was the most important year in our first decade, says Schneider. “That’s the year we hired Patty Cantrell (food and agriculture), Kelly Thayer (transportation) and Andy Guy (water and urban development). Each of them was an accomplished journalist, activist in heart and spirit, and so important to our concept of joining original reporting with advocacy. The convergence of journalism with organizing and policy development was the operating engine of MLUI during my time from 1995 to 2007.”
8 January 29, 1998—Gov. John Engler announces in the State of the State address that Michigan will not allow drilling for natural gas in the Jordan River Valley. The announcement culminates three years of grassroots campaigning to elevate the natural gas rush in northern Michigan to statewide attention and develop more environmentally sound drilling practices.
9 Hans Voss becomes the executive director in 2000, a position he would hold for 25 years until his 2024 retirement.
10 MLUI battles a private developer and the State of Michigan to preserve public lands and public access on Lake Michigan’s South Fox Island during 2000. The island was purchased by real estate magnate David V. Johnson in 1994 for $1.3 million, and the entire island was sold back to the state of Michigan for $2.2 million at the end of 2000.
11 October 15, 2001—“Liquid Gold Rush” report (http://mlui.org/pubs/specialreports/waterdiversion/page1.asp) published that finds significant risks to Michigan waters from Nestle Corporation’s development of a bottled water plant that would withdraw millions of gallons of water from central Michigan aquifers. Report findings are introduced at a news conference in Lansing with gubernatorial candidate and Attorney General Jennifer Granholm, who vows as governor to negotiate a multi-state treaty to protect Great Lakes waters from sale out of the basin. The report serves as the start of Granholm’s work to establish the 2008 Great Lakes Compact to prevent diversions out of the basin.
https://web.archive.org/web/20030509171339/http://www.mlui.org/reportarticle.asp?fileid=14071
12 November 12, 2001—Congress bans directional oil and gas drilling beneath the Great Lakes in Public Law 107-66 (https://www.congress.gov/bill/107th-congress/house-bill/2311/text). The Congressional Action culminates five years of grassroots organizing and frontline reporting by the Michigan Land Use Institute on irresponsible production practices by Michigan’s natural gas sector.
13 In 2001—Groundwork committed itself to building economy and community around locally grown food. We saw a need to support farmers in having more than just the global commodity markets for selling their products, which was leading to the loss of farm business and farmland, and the growth of sprawl. We researched models that would support local food and community economics and published them in 2002 in a report called The New Entrepreneurial Agriculture. Then we set about catalyzing such efforts in our region and state.
14 February 23, 2002—MLUI launches “The Great Choice 2002,” (http://mlui.org/report.asp?spid=36) a series of exclusive and widely read reports from the Institute’s journalists about the land use challenges and natural resource issues that should decide the campaign for governor. The reporting project helped make the case that “the quality of Michigan’s environment and natural resources is playing a more influential role in the outcome than in any other race for governor in the nation. The security of the Great Lakes, the loss of farmland and wild spaces to sprawl, and how to prevent fecal contamination in water are priorities for Michigan voters.” Jennifer Granholm embraced the priorities and values outlined in the reporting and won the governor’s office.
15 March 26, 2002—MLUI leads coalition to file a lawsuit against the Grand Traverse County Road Commission to block construction of a bridge across the Boardman River. The bridge is intended as a vital link in a highway bypass south of Traverse City. The lawsuit, grassroots organizing, and original reporting by the Institute eventually convinced the county road commission to drop the bypass plan in 2005. 2002 also saw the state cancel a planned 4-lane bypass with median around Petoskey following opposition efforts in which MLUI played a leading role. Stopping the bypasses in Traverse City and Petoskey are hallmark achievements of MLU’s first 10 years.
http://www.mlui.org/mlui/news-views/articles-from-1995-to-2012.html?archive_id=76#.XH1FoS2ZPaY
http://mlui.org/downloads/smartroads.pdf
http://www.mlui.org/mlui/archives.html?archive_id=98
16 April 15, 2002—“The New Entrepreneurial Agriculture” report is published (http://www.mlui.org/downloads/newag.pdf) that explains how agriculture is an important economic and environmental asset that communities can leverage for all manner of public interest benefits. The report leads to a new farm-to-table economy in the Traverse City region, a state-financed program to provide fresh local foods to schools, and a nationally funded program doing the same thing in more than 40 states.
17 February 27, 2003—Gov. Jennifer Granholm approves executive order forming the Michigan Land Use Leadership Council to slow sprawl and rebuild urban centers in the state. MLUI led the coalition of nonprofit and government organizations that built the hazards of sprawl into a statewide issue that helped elect Granholm to the governor’s office. Hans Voss was named a member of the council that, among other initiatives, recommended Granholm’s “Cool Cities” program that was a big factor in the redevelopment of Grand Rapids and Detroit.
18 In 2003 we held the first of two conferences called Seeds of Prosperity, where we made the economic case for supporting local food markets to economic officials, planners, policymakers, university allies, other nonprofit organizations, farms, and others.
19 The Taste the Local Difference guide, publicity, and marketing program is launched in spring 2004. The program connected farms with everyday shoppers, and buyers from local restaurants, grocers, specialty food producers, hospitals, and schools. After 15 years of establishing and building Taste the Local Difference, we carefully released it to the small-business world, where it has become a women-owned, women-led local food marketing agency making farms and other local food businesses visible throughout the state and beyond.
20. In the fall of 2004 Groundwork started supporting area schools to put local farm products on their cafeteria trays for students, provide markets for farms, and include supportive experiential learning for kids, such as school gardens and farmer visits. By 2008 we had the support of our regional school agency in hosting what was the state’s first farm to school conference, showing that farm to school could work in snowy Michigan, not just sunny California. We later (2011) brought FoodCorps service members to our region to increase in-school support. And for sustainability, we worked with multi-county school agencies so that they could also support schools in these efforts, which they do to this day.
21 In 2004 Sen. Levin redirects dollars from the cancelled 30-mile-long Traverse City bypass to a six-county planning project, eventually titled the Grand Vision, which began in 2005.
22. By 2007, Groundwork had launched Get Farming, Keep Farming, a multi-
year series of workshops and trainings for farmers and other food producers on local food marketing, production, and resources like capital. We also held business meet-and-greets and brainstorming sessions for farmers, schools, restaurateurs, grocers, and specialty food producers to connect and share with us what was needed to advance success.
23 In 2008, Groundwork called together partners across the region—land conservancies, staffers at MSU Extension, farmers, and advocates for environment, economy and health—to see how we could work together in building the local food economy. The result: In 2009, all of us launched the Northwest Michigan Food & Farming Network. Together, we found ways to collaborate on grants, bring resources to our region, and use our collective voice to advance policy.
24 In 2009, Groundwork worked with area health departments, Head Start, and poverty reduction advocates to support low-income families in getting access to locally grown food when the USDA’s Women, Infants, and Children program finally included funds for moms to buy fresh fruits and vegetables.
25 In 2010, Groundwork led the fundraising effort with our other Food & Farming Network members to bring Fair Food Network’s Double Up Food Bucks program here, which doubles the money of SNAP recipients when they spend their federal food benefits on produce at farmers markets. We all later teamed up again to create a paper Guide to Local Food Assistance and Eating Local.
26 FoodCorps begins in 2010, and Groundwork hosts service members in the program’s inaugural year.
27 In 2011 Groundwork published “Families on the Edge: Designing Communities that Work,” a 20-page report for the six-county Grand Traverse Region as it was in the process of implementing an ambitious region-wide planning effort called the Grand Vision. Groundwork made the case for how this vision for our region must, crucially, be put in place in ways that made sure families struggling financially weren’t left behind. We looked at policy and planning changes leaders could put in place for affordable housing closer to work, school, and services; for cutting transportation costs for working families; for cutting ruinously expensive heating bills; and for helping families obtain healthier and affordable food.
28 On July 14, 2013 Iconic climate activist Bill McKibben speaks at the Mackinac Straits to help launch the movement to shut down the Line 5 oil pipeline. (In 2008 McKibben had also spoken at Traverse City Central Grade School as he was launching his 350 organization.)
29 In the fall of 2013 Groundwork launched what became a three-year local pilot with seven area school districts to test for possible state policy one of 25 recommendations of the Michigan Good Food Charter, a road map set by individuals and organizations across the state for building the local food economy. Could matching grants of a dime a meal make a difference for schools in purchasing and serving kids more locally grown produce? Our local pilot proved the model and in 2016 inspired state legislators to fund the program through the Michigan Department of Education—first with $250,000 in pilot regions of the state and finally, in 2020, available as a program statewide. Today, 10 Cents a Meal for Michigan’s Kids & Farms is a $4.5 million program for all of the state’s children and farms. Home daycare and Early Care and Education sites became eligible in 2021.
30 In 2015 Michigan Land Use Institute changes its name to Groundwork.
31 In 2015 Groundwork is instrumental in founding the Michigan Climate Action Network, a statewide coalition of advocacy organizations and individuals devoted to slowing and stopping Earth’s rising temperature.
32 In response to citizens’ strong desire for passenger rail expressed during the Grand Vision regional planning process, in 2015 Groundwork launches an effort to re-establish passenger rail service from northwest Lower Michigan to southeast Michigan, using existing railroad tracks.
33 In January 2016, Groundwork organized a major Farms, Food & Health Conference after a mini-conference held in fall 2014, both co-hosted with our region’s major health center, Munson Healthcare. The 2016 conference drew nearly 255 people from around the state. Participants included physicians, registered nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, registered dietitians, diabetes and nutrition educators, hospital administrators, school food and education officials, church and food pantry representatives, garden coordinators, farmers, and farm support groups.
34 Groundwork teams up in 2017 with the National Wildlife Federation to create the Great Lakes Business Network, a business organization whose members understand that a healthy environment is essential for a healthy economy, and they advocate for policy that supports that understanding.
35 Groundwork releases in 2018 an in-depth and widely circulated report, titled Canadian Profits, Michigan Risk, detailing how the Enbridge Line 5 oil pipeline is not needed for U.S. oil supply and poses a grave risk to the Great Lakes and Michigan taxpayers in the event of a massive spill.
36 Groundwork hosts the 2019 Michigan Clean Energy Conference in Traverse City, attracting 200+ attendees to discuss how policy and technology advances can achieve Michigan’s transition to a net-zero carbon economy.
37 Groundwork hosts the 2019 Farms, Food and Health Conference in Traverse City, convening 300+ people from throughout the food and health system to discuss, brainstorm, and strategize on how to propel the local food movement forward.
38 Immediately following the Covid lockdown in 2020, Groundwork launches the Local Food Relief Fund, rapidly raising nearly $200,000 to help food pantries purchase food from local farms.
39 In 2021, Groundwork launched the Building Resilient Communities program, which provides consulting and $2,000 stipends to entities such as farms, food pantries, schools, childcare centers and more to purchase equipment and services that expand access to local food and grow the local food economy.
40 Groundwork moves its offices to Commongrounds Co-Operative in 2022.
41 Access MI Solar launches in 2022 to offer homeowner and small businesses discounts on solar equipment purchases. Thus far over 50 families have taken advantage of the program, helping prove the effectiveness of clean energy and normalizing it for neighbors and communities.
42. Groundwork and Commongrounds open the Esperance Community Teaching Kitchen in June 2023, designed to spread the health and delicious wisdom of local, whole foods cooking and culinary medicine practices throughout the region.
43. Published Shared Abundance: Lessons in building community around locally grown food, in 2023. Presenting personal stories, strategies, and essential how-to tips, the book offers a roadmap for jumpstarting and expanding local food economies in communities everywhere.
44. Hosting the first Great Lakes Business Network Washington, D.C., fly-in 2024, the organization and its members deepen relationships with federal representatives on clean energy, Line 5 and Great Lakes legislation.
45 At the end of 2024, Hans Voss retires and Elizabeth Palchak steps into the position of Executive Director.
46 Groundwork celebrates its 30th birthday on Earth Day 2025! 
