For more than 100 years, McKinley Church and Foundation have been committed to social justice work and service as a means of living out faith and socially conscious convictions. Though the foundation is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA), its campus ministry respects the many spiritual traditions (including none) of the students it serves.
These have been among the efforts of the foundation and church:
- Civil rights and racial equality advocacy in the 1950s and 1960s
- Support for the Vietnam peace movement and military draft resistance
- Resettling Laotian refugee families
- Daycare support for low-income families (later known as the Marilyn Queller Child Care Center)
- A clothing exchange for students and the community
- Support for central Americans seeking political asylum
- Housing the Men’s Winter Emergency Shelter
- Full inclusion of LGBTQ people in the life of the church
- International mission exchanges
- Sponsorship of other community churches
- Housing the Graduate Employee Organizational, Illinois Federation of Teachers, and the GOALS Project for teen parents
- Building Presby Hall, an environmentally state-of-the-art student residence hall