In metro Detroit, the list changes daily.
Several suburbs here run do-not-knock registries, and at least one requires a licensed canvasser to download the current list every day before going out. Yesterday's list is not a defence. Most of the compliance work in this market is not filing — it is the daily operational discipline of honouring what residents have already said.
- The state licenses the firm and the personMichigan requires a professional fundraiser licence with a $10,000 bond, and separate registration for each individual solicitor.
- Paying a fundraiser removes the charity's exemptionA Michigan charity under the $25,000 threshold still has to register the moment it pays anyone to raise money.
- Do-not-knock is enforced, not advisoryEntering a listed address is grounds for suspension of the licence, not a warning.
Michigan's Charitable Solicitations Act, and the layer under it.
1975 PA 169, MCL 400.271 et seq., administered by the Attorney General's Charitable Trust Section rather than the Secretary of State.
The charity registers
Registration is required of an organization that solicits or receives contributions in Michigan. The familiar read is that it bites above $25,000 a year — but the clause that actually matters to our clients is the other one: if you pay anyone to raise money, you must be registered, whatever you raise. Hiring us is itself the trigger. MCL 400.273, exemptions at 400.283.
The agency licenses and bonds
A person shall not act as a professional fundraiser before filing a licence application with the Attorney General and a $10,000 bond running to the people of the state — and to any person, charities included, with a cause of action for malfeasance in the conduct of the solicitation. The licence expires 30 June every year. MCL 400.287(1), Form CTS-08.
Every solicitor registers
Individual solicitors employed by a licensed professional fundraiser register separately with the Attorney General. The state says it plainly: solicitors who call donors or work door to door must register. MCL 400.287(2), Form CTS-09.
Reporting does not stop at launch either: a campaign financial statement is due within 90 days of each campaign ending, annually for ongoing ones, and a contract summary is filed for every contract with a charitable organization. See the Michigan Attorney General's professional fundraiser page.
Do-not-knock registries, and the agencies that treat them as a formality.
Metro Detroit's suburbs run some of the most developed no-solicitation regimes in the country, and they are not identical. Knowing the difference between them is the job.
- Troy keeps a registry at the City Clerk's office, gives every licensee a copy of the current list, and holds listings for five years. A "No Solicitation" sign or a registry cling at the door is treated the same as a listing — entering is prohibited and grounds for suspension.
- Troy sets hours: 9am to 6pm from 1 October to 31 March, and 9am to 8pm from 1 April to 30 September, in residential areas. A charitable solicitation application goes in 21 days ahead, with fingerprints and a photograph for peddler applications.
- Novi requires permitted solicitors to download the current registry list each day. Residents register for five years and can block peddlers, solicitors, or both. Religious and political representatives are not subject to it.
- Rochester operates its own do-not-knock request process through the City Clerk.
Note what is not exempt. Troy writes religious and political purposes out of the definition of soliciting, but charitable, educational and philanthropic solicitation still needs a permit. A charity canvass in Troy is licensed, not waved through.
- The list is pulled before the shift, not before the weekWhere a city requires a daily download, we do a daily download. It is the cheapest rule in this business to follow and the easiest to get caught not following.
- Addresses are suppressed at the device, not on a clipboardA rep should never have to remember an address. The territory they see already has the listed ones taken out of it.
- Hours are enforced by the rosterSeasonal cut-offs differ by city and change with the clocks. Shift end times are set per municipality, not per campaign.
Detroit organizations we run programs for.
Named with permission, present tense. We don't publish their results on their behalf, and we don't use their logos.
Two million households inside one metro.
Southeast Michigan — Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Washtenaw, Livingston, Monroe and St. Clair — held 4.85 million residents across just over two million households as of July 2025, on SEMCOG's own estimates. Dense, well-defined, and close enough together that a crew can work several municipalities in a week without a hotel.
For commercial clients, one thing is worth saying plainly rather than discovering in month two: residential energy switching is not a live field channel in Michigan. The state caps electric customer choice at 10% of each utility's retail sales under PA 286 of 2008, the cap is fully subscribed, and there is a waiting list. Detroit field sales means telecom and broadband, home services and security — not energy.
We hire across metro Detroit year round.
Hourly base plus bonus, W-2 with taxes withheld, paid from your first day of training. No experience needed — and we file your Michigan solicitor registration, because you cannot legally work a campaign without it.
Run a campaign in Detroit.
Tell us the goal and the budget. We'll come back with the municipalities we'd work, the registry obligations in each, and a launch date that accounts for both.