Michigan launches welcome program for recent grads, new residents
Chief Growth Officer Hilary Doe speaks during a press conference with Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist on the porch of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Mich., during the second day of the Mackinac Policy Conference on May 28, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Roth/Michigan Advance)
MACKINAC ISLAND – Michigan's first chief growth officer announced the state is creating a welcome program offering perks to new residents and recent college graduates staying in the state.
Participants in the Make MI Home program will receive free access to Michigan's state parks, opportunities to connect with others through curated events and discounts at various local attractions and businesses.
Two years after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced the creation of Chief Growth Officer Hilary Doe's position in her Mackinac Policy Conference keynote, Doe said the state is beginning to trend in the right direction, with Detroit and Flint both showing population growth for the first time in several years.
'Every year, there are more people moving to Michigan and fewer moving out than there were in the year before,' Doe said.
But she said there is still work to do to ensure those trends continue, which is why the state announced more than $700,000 of grant funding for five programs aimed at reversing Michigan's population decline.
Make MI Home offers grants to programs throughout the state to help people with things like housing and relocation support, access to coworking spaces and more.
Among the grant recipients is the City of Detroit, which will receive $210,000 to launch the Detroit Tech Fellowship Program, which will target recent graduates from Michigan universities to scale their startups in Michigan, providing access to coworking space, housing support, and cohort events to network and collaborate with peers and local entrepreneurs.
'What we're talking about today is making it easier for people to say yes to living in Michigan,' Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist said.
Gilchrist said he understands the need for the funding as someone who was born and raised in Michigan but left the state to pursue his career after graduating college.
'We grow our population one decision at a time, one person deciding where they're going to take their next step in life, where they're going to build their next chapter, where they're going to make their family and their future and their career real,' Gilchrist said.
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