· Private foundation
Benson & Edith Ford Fund
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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k13 grants · $48k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $110k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $175k
- $250k+2 grants · $1.0M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COLLEGE FOR CREATIVE STUDIES | $700,000 |
| TEEN STREET SKILLS | $300,000 |
| DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS | $100,000 |
| HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM | $75,000 |
| ALZHEIMER'S ASSOCIATION | $25,000 |
| THE HENRY FORD ESTATE - FAIRLANE | $20,000 |
| MICHIGAN HUMANE | $15,000 |
| CAPUCHIN SOUP KITCHEN | $15,000 |
| BAPTIST HEALTH SOUTH FLORIDA FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| RACING FOR KIDS | $10,000 |
| THE HENRY FORD | $10,000 |
| INTERLOCHEN CENTER FOR THE ARTS | $8,000 |
| ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL | $7,500 |
| DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $5,000 |
| EMPOWERMENT PLAN | $5,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY17–24, $108k) land where the poverty rate runs at 18%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 72% of those 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.
44 repeat relationships — 22 still active in FY2024, 22 since wound down; 2 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, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $11k 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
COLLEGE FOR CREATIVE STUDIES8× · 2017–2024 · $5.0M · revenue +25%- HFHENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM8× · 2017–2024 · $3.4M · revenue +69%
- TSTEEN STREET SKILLS8× · 2017–2024 · $2.2M · revenue +251% · 98% of their budget
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2021 · $50k
- BHBAPTIST HEALTH FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $50k
- URURBAN RENEWAL INITIATIVE FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $50k · revenue +463%
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.
Informing and educating the public and decision makers about environmental issues.
The chamber is the voice for business and works to power the economy for southeast michigan through public policy, advocacy and leading regional economic development and talent initiatives.
Gdahc mission: together with our partners, we empower and improve the health and economic vitality of individuals, organizations and communities by catalyzing the power of collaboration. gdahc vision: healthy people. healthy community.…
We, trinity health-michigan and trinity health, serve together in the spirit of the gospel as a compassionate and transforming healing presence within our communities. trinity health-michigan is a member of trinity health.
Mclaren health care, through its subsidiaries, will be the best value in health care as defined by quality outcomes and cost.
Mclaren healthcare, through its subsidiaries, will be the best value in healthcare as defined by quality outcomes and cost.
Henry ford health macomb hospital (hfmh) is an affiliate of henry ford health system dba henry ford health ("hf health") serving the northeastern metropolitan detroit michigan communities. as an integrated component of one of the nation's…
Eastern market is organized to combat community deterioration and to lessen the burdens of government in managing its public market that has served detroit since 1891. eastern market operates the market under an agreement with the city of…
To create life-enriching experiences that build meaningful relations, foster personal and professional growth, and celebrate culture in the heart of detroit.
Creating healthy communities - together
The corporation is organized and shall be operated exclusively for charitable, educational and scientific purposes by conducting or supporting activites exclusively for the benefit of, to perform the functions of, or to carry out the…
Business leaders for michigan is a nonprofit, nonpartisan statewide organization driven by ceos from the state's leading employers, all working toward a shared goal: making michigan a top 10 state for jobs, talent and a thriving economy.…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mclaren Northern Michigan Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Grosse Pointe Historical Society. 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 47 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 25% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
31 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. 31 of the 54 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
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 COLLEGE FOR CREATIVE STUDIES ↗
- Who funds HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM ↗
- Who funds TEEN STREET SKILLS ↗
- Who funds THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS ↗
- Who funds HENRY FORD ESTATE ↗
- Who funds TACOMA COMMUNITY BOAT BUILDERS INC ↗
- Who funds GLEANERS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK OF SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds RACING FOR KIDS ↗
- Who funds THE EMPOWERMENT PLAN ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Baptist Health South Florida Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds URBAN RENEWAL INITIATIVE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MCLAREN NORTHERN MICHIGAN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds INTERLOCHEN CENTER FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds DETROIT PUBLIC MEDIA ↗
- Who funds DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds GROSSE POINTE HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Baptist Health South Florida Inc ↗
- Who funds JARC ↗
- Who funds OCEAN REEF CHAPEL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE PEWABIC SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds DETROIT ARTISTS MARKET ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds MOTOWN HISTORICAL MUSUEM INC ↗
- Who funds THE GREENING OF DETROIT ↗
- Who funds MARINERS INN ↗
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: Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · Dte Energy Foundation · William & Martha Ford Fund · The Kresge Foundation · Lynn & Paul Alandt Foundation · Hudson-Webber Foundation · Ford Philanthropy · Children's Hospital of Michigan Foundation · The Skillman Foundation · Alice Kales Hartwick Foundation · Matilda R Wilson Fund · Young Woman's Home Association of Detroit Michigan
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 Benson & Edith Ford Fund 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 Benson & Edith Ford Fund?
Find your warmest path to Benson & Edith Ford Fund 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.