Speakers and Panelists :: Marvin H. McKinney
Marvin H. McKinney is a program director for youth programs at the W. K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Michigan. In this role, he develops and reviews programming priorities, evaluates and recommends proposals for funding, and administers projects.
Previously, Dr. McKinney was the associate director/community scholar in residence at the Institute for Children, Youth, and Families at Michigan State University in East Lansing. While there, he conducted ethnographic research on pervasive poverty, coordinated the Institute's efforts in community research and outreach, and conducted an in-depth study of the delivery of early childhood education programs in the Flint Community School District.
Prior to working at Michigan State University, Dr. McKinney was a program officer at the C. S. Mott Foundation in Flint, Michigan. His responsibilities included administration, pre-grant investigations, and evaluation in the areas of historically Black colleges and early childhood and parenting education.
Dr. McKinney has a breadth of experience in the field of youth. Positions he has held include director of planning and community affairs with the Mott Children's Health Center, program specialist for Title I, early childhood education with the Michigan Department of Education, and director of early childhood education with the Ann Arbor Public Schools. He also has served as a consultant to numerous foundations throughout the United States. He began his professional career as an elementary school teacher in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
Dr. McKinney earned his bachelor's, master's, and education specialist degrees from Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti. He received his doctorate from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He completed a Busch Foundation postdoctoral fellowship in child development and public policy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
The W. K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 “to help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations.” Its programming activities center around the common vision of a world in which each person has a sense of worth; accepts responsibility for self, family, community, and societal well-being; and has the capacity to be productive and to help create nurturing families, responsive institutions, and healthy communities.
To achieve the greatest impact, the Foundation targets its grants toward specific areas. These include health, food systems and rural development, youth and education, and philanthropy and volunteerism. Within these areas, attention is given to exploring learning opportunities in leadership, information and communication technology, capitalizing on diversity, and social and economic community development. Grants are concentrated in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the southern African countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe.