· Public charity
Ann Arbor Spark
Ann Arbor SPARK advances the region by encouraging and supporting business acceleration, attraction, expansion and retention.
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
- Under $10k5 grants · $34k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $62k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $582k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Howell Area Chamber of Commerce | $172,777 |
| Grand Valley State University | $130,568 |
| Jewish Family Services | $106,700 |
| Monroe County Business Alliance | $96,535 |
| MI-HQ | $75,000 |
| Washtenaw Community College | $42,324 |
| Tortillas Tita LLC | $10,000 |
| University of Michigan | $10,000 |
| BCHIRA | $7,923 |
| The Mix Studios LLC | $7,000 |
| Beara Bakes LLC | $7,000 |
| B-Cubed Bakery | $7,000 |
| Unity Vibration Kombucha | $5,199 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY20–21, $129k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 43% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +118% since the first grant, against +34% for the ones you funded once.
71 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2024, 69 since wound down; 11 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, 25% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $505k 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
- HCHILLSDALE COUNTY AG2× · 2020–2021 · $30k · revenue +812%
- TYTHE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF MONROE MICHIGAN2× · 2020–2021 · $29k · revenue +118%
- BGBOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF LENAWEE INC2× · 2020–2021 · $26k · revenue +66%
Funded once
- MEMICHIGAN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPone grant, 2020 · $125k
- NLNAIAS LLCone grant, 2022 · $40k
- DSDUNDEE SUPERIOR HOSPITALITY LLCone grant, 2020 · $20k
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's mission is to promote a healthy business climate for its members and all businesses in macomb county, michigan.
To promote business and economic development for eight towns in southwest michigan.
To promote conditions favorable to job creation and business success in michigan.
to stimulate economic development, attract new businesses, grow established businesses and support entrepreneurial endeavors in Lenawee County
The mission of the Davison Area Chamber of Commerce is to grow into a hub for local businesses, churches, organizations and community events. The Davison Chamber believes that all businesses are important in our area. The goal of the…
The lapeer area chamber of commerce is committed to continiously promoting & fostering the business climate to enhance the quality of life in our community.
To make laurens county a better place to live and work.
Member programs/services, economic development
Promote tourism in monroe county
To promote the common economic interests of all the commercial enterprises in the Genesee County, Michigan community. The Organization strives to enhance the business climate in the area and advocates for public policy that supports…
To promote business and community growth and development and prepserve the competitive enterprise system of business.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Howell Area Chamber of Commerce Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Adrian Chamber of Commerce. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 29 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 9% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.7% lost their exemption, against 17% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
67 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. 67 of the 906 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 HOWELL AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FAMILY SERVICES OF WASHTENAW COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds MONROE COUNTY BUSINESS ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds HILLSDALE COUNTY AG ↗
- Who funds THE YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF MONROE MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF LENAWEE INC ↗
- Who funds ADRIAN ARMORY COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
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 of Washtenaw County · Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation · The Martin Family Foundation · Livingston County United Way · The Buhr Foundation · Harry a and Margaret D Towsley Foundation · Duffy Foundation · James a and Faith Knight Foundation · Small Business Association of Michigan · Food Gatherers · Lenawee Community Foundation · Thrift Shop Association of Ann Arbor
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 Ann Arbor Spark 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.