· Private foundation
Alternative Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k3 grants · $85k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $240k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LIFE REMODELED-A NONPROFIT CORPORATION | $100,000 |
| DEVELOPING KINGDOMS IN DIFFERENT STAGES | $80,000 |
| DETROIT FOOD & ENTREPRENEURSHIP ACADEMY | $60,000 |
| NW GOLDBERG CARES | $45,000 |
| BAILEY PARK PROJECT | $30,000 |
| MIDNIGHT GOLF PROGRAM | $10,000 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY20–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 21%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 97% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
4 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 52% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $155k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- BPBailey Park Project4× · 2021–2024 · $585k · revenue +25% · 38% of their budget
- WDWARRENCONNER DEVELOPMENT COALITION2× · 2020–2021 · $294k · revenue +292%
DETROIT FOOD & ENTREPRENEURSHIP ACADEMY4× · 2020–2024 · $125k · revenue +65%
Funded once
- CLCINNAIRE LENDING CORPORATIONgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $100k · revenue +95%
- TFTHE FENN SCHOOLone grant, 2020 · $30k · revenue -10%
KEEP GROWING DETROITgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $20k · revenue +225%
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
The organization was founded by a group of concerned citizens, working in cooperation with the detroit city council, to shape food policy and to work for a more localized, more just, and environmentally friendly food system. the…
The greening of detroit's mission is the sustainable growth of a healthy urban community through trees, green spaces, healthy living, education, training and job opportunities.
Develop detroit, inc. is a nonprofit community development firm focused on providing affordable and mixed income housing, as well as strategic economic and commercial development that will help stabilize and transform disinvested…
Dream of Detroit is combining community organizing with strategic housing and land development to build a healthy community and empower a marginalized neighborhood on the Westside of Detroit.
Promotion of activities to spur economic growth and revitalization in the city of detroit
The organization works with k-12, higher education and other community partners to design and implement programs to improve rates of college persistence and completion.
To enable african americans and people in need to reach their full human potential
Community development via home ownership and home repair programs. financial literacy education
The organization is known as the leader in the movement and is seen as the "go to" experts on environmental justice and sustainable redevelopment because of its knowledge and its network.
The neighborhood reinvestment corporation (d.b.a neighborworks america) is a congressionally chartered public non-profit corporation that creates opportunities for people to live in affordable homes, improve their lives, and strengthen…
DBCFSN works to build self-reliance and food security in Detroits black community by influencing public policy promoting urban agriculture, promoting healthy eating and encouraging youth to pursue careers in food related fields.
Djj advances racial and economic justice by developing metro detroit jews as community organizers who fight for transformative policy change in deep partnership with neighbors
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Keep Growing Detroit and the most unlike its peers is The Midnight Golf Program. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
12 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds Bailey Park Project ↗
- Who funds WARRENCONNER DEVELOPMENT COALITION ↗
- Who funds Developing Kingdoms in Different Stages ↗
- Who funds DETROIT FOOD & ENTREPRENEURSHIP ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds LIFE REMODELED ↗
- Who funds CINNAIRE LENDING CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds NW GOLDBERG CARES INC ↗
- Who funds THE FENN SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds KEEP GROWING DETROIT ↗
- Who funds THE MIDNIGHT GOLF PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds DOING DEVELOPMENT DIFFERENTLY IN METRO DETROIT (D4) COALITION INC ↗
- Who funds STREET DEMOCRACY ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: United Way for Southeastern Michigan · Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · The Skillman Foundation · The Ralph C Wilson Jr Foundation · McGregor Fund · WK Kellogg Foundation · The Ford Foundation · The Kresge Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Alternative Foundation funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Alternative Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Alternative Foundation through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.