The Made-in-Michigan Interfaith Leadership Lab (MIMIL) is a multi-day interfaith gathering bringing together student leaders from college campuses across the Mitten to explore and test out interfaith engagement strategies in community as Michiganders - to learn from and with each other, and to put the work of religious pluralism into action across our state.

The Kaufman Interfaith Institute at Grand Valley State University is proud to host this year’s Lab in collaboration with our partners at the University of Michigan, Michigan State, Kalamazoo College, Northwestern Michigan College, and Hope College. Over the course of the two days in February 2026, students will move from dreaming to doing as they hear from community leaders, connect with their peers, and try on some of the successful models of deep engagement across difference. An essential part of the conference is a series of breakout sessions led by the students themselves, where they can lead their peers through an interactive interfaith experience that has proved fruitful on their own campuses.

The MIMIL conference began in 2016 and continued for 4 years as a regional off-shoot of Interfaith America’s Leadership Summit, furthering the work begun at the national conference and bringing their tools and resources into our Michigan context. As with so many of Kaufman’s initiatives, the momentum of the annual MIMIL conferences was dampened with the COVID shutdown. We now look to revitalize this collaborative conference, adapting it to the new challenges of a post-pandemic college campus. The hope is to continue this gathering annually with the help of our campus partners across the state. 

Find out more about this year's gathering