· Community foundation
Berrien Community Foundation Inc
To connect the power of the people who care with causes and organizations that strengthen our communities.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 201 grants below total $9,241,775 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $10,120,973 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $879,198 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k51 grants · $365k
- $10k–50k112 grants · $2.5M
- $50k–250k31 grants · $3.0M
- $250k+7 grants · $3.4M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ST JOSEPH COMMUNITY PARK FOUNDATION | $871,813 |
| CURIOUS KIDS' MUSEUM | $578,337 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO FOUNDATION | $575,000 |
| NEW BUFFALO AREA SCHOOLS | $364,500 |
| PROJECT HOPE - THE PEOPLE TO PEOPLE HEALTH FOUNDAT | $350,000 |
| CORNERSTONE PUBLIC ASSET FUND INC | $342,359 |
| BERRIEN COUNTY PARKS DEPARTMENT | $337,036 |
| UNITED WAY OF SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN | $237,325 |
| SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $207,353 |
| CITY OF ST JOSEPH | $165,012 |
| FRIENDS OF BERRIEN COUNTY TRAILS | $155,000 |
| COREWELL HEALTH FOUNDATION SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN | $135,063 |
| NILESYMCAGSRP | $127,561 |
| CAMP VICTORY MINISTRIES | $120,000 |
| THE AVENUE FAMILY NETWORK INC DBA CARING CONNECTION | $115,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $3.3M) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 98% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 7% of Berrien Community Foundation Inc’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 77% of the giving stays in MI; read by stated purpose it is 71% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +23% since the first grant, against +11% for the ones you funded once.
291 repeat relationships — 147 still active in FY2025, 144 since wound down; 48 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 84% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.5M 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
- SJST JOSEPH PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION9× · 2017–2025 · $3.4M · revenue +121% · 59% of their budget
- LELAKESHORE EXCELLENCE FOUNDATION9× · 2017–2025 · $2.1M · revenue +41% · 74% of their budget
THE UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO FOUNDATION5× · 2017–2025 · $1.9M · revenue +37%
Funded once
- FCFIDELITY CHARITABLE - ALEXANDER FAMILY CHARITABLE FUNDone grant, 2022 · $1.0M
- TUThe University of Findlayone grant, 2017 · $150k · revenue +4%
- LILVDI INTERNATIONAL INCORPORATEDone grant, 2023 · $150k · revenue -60% · 50% of their budget
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 nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.
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.…
To promote conditions favorable to job creation and business success in michigan.
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.…
The mission of the michigan science center is to inspire curious minds of all ages to discover, explore and appreciate science, technology, engineering and math in a creative, dynamic learning environment.
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…
Creating healthy communities - together
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
Michigan farm bureau (mfb) is a member directed agricultural organization whose purpose is to represent, protect, and enhance the business, economic, social, and educational interests of our members located throughout the state of michigan.
Mclaren health care, through its subsidiaries, will be the best value in health care as defined by quality outcomes and cost.
Bridging the gap between early-stage innovation and commercial application. partnering to de-risk, develop and scale-up discoveries into commercially-viable technology packages.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Bethany Christian Services and the most unlike its peers is Starkey Hearing Foundation. 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 38 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
320 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. 320 of the 536 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 ST JOSEPH PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds LAKESHORE EXCELLENCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY OF TOLEDO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds LAKELAND HEALTH FOUNDATION BENTON HARBOR/STJOSEPH ↗
- Who funds MOSAIC CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds St Joseph Community Park Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds MICHIANA HUMANE SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF GREATER SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF SOUTHWESTERN MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds THE HERITAGE MUSEUM AND CULTURAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds CURIOUS KIDS MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds KRASL ART CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF GREATER MICHIANA INC ↗
- Who funds LAKE MICHIGAN COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NEW HEIGHTS CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY DEVELOPM ↗
- Who funds The Chicago Community Trust ↗
- Who funds THE AVENUE FAMILY NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY WORLDWIDE ↗
- Who funds Hospice at Home Inc ↗
- Who funds HARBOR SHORES PUBLIC ASSET FUND INC ↗
- Who funds BLANCHARD VALLEY HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY HEALING CENTERS ↗
- Who funds THE COLORADO COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds REGION IV AREA AGENCY ON AGING INC (WITH FOSTER GRANDPARENTS PROGRAM) ↗
- Who funds CORNERSTONE ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds CITADEL DANCE AND MUSIC CENTER INC ↗
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: Whirlpool Foundation · The Pokagon Fund Inc · United Way of Southwest Michigan · St Josephbenton Harbor Rotary Foundation Inc · The Marzke Family Foundation · Feeding America West Michigan · Michigan Gateway Community Foundation · Lakeland Health Foundation Benton Harbor/Stjoseph · Hanson Family Foundation · Fettig Family Foundation · The Schalon Foundation · 1st Source Bank Foundation Inc Xxx-Xx-Xxxx
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 Berrien Community Foundation Inc 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 Berrien Community Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Berrien Community Foundation Inc 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.