· Private foundation
Brinkerhoff-Sample Family Foundation
Its FY2023 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- Under $10k3 grants · $5k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $30k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNITED WAY OF WASHTENAW COUNTY | $30,000 |
| FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH | $4,020 |
| PEACE NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER | $1,000 |
| BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF | $400 |
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 (FY17–23, $14k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +202% since the first grant, against +38% for the ones you funded once.
9 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2023, 6 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (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 FY2023, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $400 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
- UWUNITED WAY4× · 2017–2020 · $80k
- UWUNITED WAY OF WASHTENAW COUNTY2× · 2021–2023 · $44k · revenue -89%
- FPFIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH2× · 2020–2023 · $18k
Funded once
- FPFIRST PRESBYTERIANone grant, 2021 · $7k
- HWHURON WATERLOO PATHWAYS INITIATIVEgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $2k · revenue +26%
- LLLEGACY LAND CONSERVANCYgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $500 · revenue +294%
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.
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…
Inspire awareness, appreciation and passion for michigan's history and stories, culture and environment through the arts.
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 conserve, sustain, and connect natural areas, land, and waters that make the places we live special
Up land conservancy protects land in michigan's upper peninsula by owning it as nature preserves and working forest reserves, and through conservation easements(perpetual, voluntary agreements that guard the conservation values of the…
It is our mission at huron pines to conserve and enhance northern michigan's natural resources to ensure healthy water, protected places and vibrant communities. for alomst 50 years, our work across the forests, lakes and streams of…
Michigan trails & greenways alliance is the statewide voice for nonmotorized trail users, helping people build, connect and promote trails for a healthier and more prosperous michigan.
The mission of gtrlc is to protect significant natural, scenic and farm lands and advance land stewardship now and for future generations.
Heart of the Lakes provides technical assistance, leadership training, and strategic communication tools that help organizations thrive - from grassroots land conservancies to larger regional conservation groups. Programs such as peer…
Informing and educating the public and decision makers about environmental issues.
Works to end environmental injustice by empowering communities at the grassroots level.the corporation is organzied exclusively for charitable, religious, educational and scientific purposes, including for such purposes, the makeing of…
Partner to alleviate hunger one meal at a time, to create a future where everyone has access to nourishing food.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Huron Waterloo Pathways Initiative and the most unlike its peers is University of Michigan. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
8 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. 8 of the 15 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.
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: Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation · James a and Faith Knight Foundation · Harry a and Margaret D Towsley Foundation · Dte Energy Foundation · THE MOSAIC FOUNDATION (Of R & P Heydon) · United Way of Washtenaw County · Charles Stewart Mott Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Brinkerhoff-Sample Family 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.