How much does Ames Family Foundation give?

Ames Family Foundation reported 18 grants totaling $865,000 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 5 and 19 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does Ames Family Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Environment (32%), Education (29%), Food & Nutrition (17%).

Who are Ames Family Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Tuskegee University ($890k), Atlanta Community Food Bank Inc ($290k), Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Inc ($265k).

Does Ames Family Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 13% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Ames Family Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Where is Ames Family Foundation based?

Ames Family Foundation is based in MI.

Ames Family Foundation

Ames Family Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Ames Family Foundation

Q: Which funders back the same organizations as Ames Family Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Mightycause Charitable Foundation, Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc.

Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$865k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$165k

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Environment$1.3MEducation$1.2MFood & Nutrition$690kRecreation & Sports$250kYouth Development$170kHuman Services$167kInternational$101kHousing & Shelter$90kOther$0

02FY2024 · 18 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

$10k–50k9 grants · $280k
$50k–250k9 grants · $585k

$50,000

Median grant

States reached

$10M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
TUSKEGEE UNIVERSITY	$165,000
THINK OF US	$70,000
UPPER PENINSULA LAND CONSERVANCY	$50,000
NORTHWESTERN MICHIGAN COLLEGE	$50,000
SEEDS	$50,000
SOUL FIRE FARM	$50,000
TART TRAILS INC	$50,000
LEELANAU CONSERVANCY	$50,000
GRAND TRAVERSE REGIONAL LAND CONSER	$50,000
THE ATLANTA COMMUNITY FOOD BANK	$45,000
CHATTAHOOCHEE RIVERKEEPER	$45,000
ONE HUNDRED MILES	$40,000
CLARKSTON COMMUNITY CENTER	$35,000
DETROIT BLACK COMMUNITY FOOD SOVERE	$25,000
THE BERRY CENTER	$25,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–24, $171k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

92%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$3.9M · 30 repeat orgs$316k to everyone else

30 repeat relationships: 16 still active in FY2024, 14 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$3.9M

$266k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+37%

+44%

Still filing today

63%

82%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $50k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

EnvironmentEducationFood & NutritionHuman ServicesHealthCommunity ImprovementOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

TU
Tuskegee University
5× · 2020–2024 · $890k · revenue +42%
AC
ATLANTA COMMUNITY FOOD BANK INC
5× · 2020–2024 · $290k · revenue +50%
CR
CHATTAHOOCHEE RIVERKEEPER INC
5× · 2020–2024 · $265k · revenue +35%

Funded once

FT
Feeding the Gulf Coast
one grant, 2020 · $75k · revenue +11%
BO
BLACK OAKS CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE RENEWABLE LIVINGgraduated
one grant, 2020 · $50k · revenue +338%
S
SEEDS
one grant, 2021 · $50k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Minnesota Land Trust

The minnesota land trust protects and restores minnesota's most vital natural lands in order to provide wildlife habitat, clean water, outdoor experiences and scenic beauty for generations to come.

Environment

Arbor Research Collaborative for Health

Arbor research collaborative for health is committed to improving patient care through research that shapes medical policies and practice. in particular, arbor research conducts health outcomes research on chronic disease and end-stage…

Health

Land Conservancy of West Michigan

Our mission is conserving West Michigans ecologically critical land. We protect land by creating public nature preserves, providing support to communities and local governments in creating natural areas, and helping private landowners…

Environment

Connecticut Farmland Trust Inc

Protect Connecticuts farmland for agricultural use by purchasing and accepting donations of agricultural conservation easements

Food & Nutrition

Native Plant Trust Inc

The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.

Environment

Environmental Investigation Agency

To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.

International

Tenngreen Land Conservancy

The organization's primary mission is conserving land where people and nature can thrive by creating green corridors linking existing public lands using conservation easments and outright purchase.

Recreation & Sports

Food & Water Watch

Food & water watch conducts extensive research and public education to ensure the food and water we consume is safe, accessible and sustainably produced. so we can all enjoy and trust in what we eat and drink, we help people take charge of…

Food & Nutrition

Oregon Agricultural Trust

Oregon agricultural trust partners with farmers and ranchers to protect agricultural lands for the benefit of oregons economy, communities, and landscapes.

Environment

Bartlett Arboretum Association Inc

To cultivate and develop an expansive collection of trees, gardens, and plants for all to explore, enjoy and study; and to provide through education and stewardship, a greener, healthier, more beautiful environment.

Environment

Six Rivers Land Conservancy Fka Six Rivers Regional Land Conservancy

To conserve, sustain, and connect natural areas, land, and waters that make the places we live special

Environment

Maine Farmland Trust

Maine Farmland Trust protects farmland, supports farmers, and advances the future of farming.

Food & Nutrition

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Soul Fire Farm Institute Inc; the most unlike its peers is The National Museum of Women in the Arts. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

28 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 28 of the 43 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

28/28

Grantees still filing

22/28

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Environment$1,310,000Other$1,020,175Education$980,000Food & Nutrition$615,000Human Services$170,600Community Improvement$50,000Health$35,250

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Mightycause Charitable FoundationFL11.2× affinity4 shared granteesties to 9 of 9Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · American Endowment Foundation · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Ames Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Ames Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

10report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

Play a game based on Ames Family’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home