· Private foundation
Brown Tassell Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k24 grants · $76k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $125k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COREWELL HEALTH FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| HELEN DEVOS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL | $20,000 |
| SAINT MARY'S FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $15,000 |
| MICHIGAN VETERANS HOME | $10,000 |
| MEL TROTTER MINISTRIES | $10,000 |
| ST JUDE CHILDRENS'S RESEARCH HOSPIT | $10,000 |
| TUNNEL TO TOWER FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| WORLD MISSION | $10,000 |
| CATHOLIC CHARITIES | $10,000 |
| TURNING POINT USA | $10,000 |
| RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE OF WEST MI | $8,000 |
| HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF KENT COUNTY | $5,000 |
| IRONMAN FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| COVENANT HOUSE MICHIGAN | $4,000 |
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, $59k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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 +38% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
34 repeat relationships — 26 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 9 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, 81% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $48k 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
- SMSAINT MARY'S FOUNDATION9× · 2017–2025 · $295k · revenue +126%
STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION3× · 2023–2025 · $45k · revenue +50%- MTMEL TROTTER MINISTRIES9× · 2017–2025 · $44k · revenue +141%
Funded once
- FOFANS OF VALLEY FIELDone grant, 2024 · $50k · revenue 0%
- FLFRED & LENA MEIJER HEART CENTERone grant, 2017 · $50k
- WMWEST MICHIGAN HISPANIC FOUNDATIONone grant, 2024 · $5k
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.
Uniting christian faith leaders to serve with humility and love for the flourishing of all in our community.
None
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…
Centrica meets our patients and families where they are with urgency, purpose and compassionate accountability surrounding them with decades of dedicated hospice expertise.
Humane society of southwestern michigan exists to provide shelter and care for sick, homeless and unwanted animals. in addition, the organization provides adoption services for the animals in its care.
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.
To improve and save lives through compassionate care, community engagement and advocacy for animals.
Hospice care - wings of hope hospice and palliative care, inc. provides compassionate care in the later stages of life and support through the grief experience for individuals and families.
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…
Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw County D/B/A Catholic Charities Washtenaw County provides diverse, holistic social services including adoption and pregnancy counseling, food and basic needs assistance, domestic and child abuse…
The mission of hospice of holland is to provide the most compassionate and highest quality end-of-life care through physical, emotional, and spiritual support.
The michigan christian home dba beacon hill at eastgate, a not-for-profit corporation, provides housing and health services in a christian environment for older adults, thus enabling them to meet their ongoing physical, social and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Kids' Food Basket Inc and the most unlike its peers is Vickys Pet Connection. 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 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 10% 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 52 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 SAINT MARY'S FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COREWELL HEALTH FOUNDATION WEST MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds FANS OF VALLEY FIELD ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF KENT COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds MEL TROTTER MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES WESTERN MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds GRAND VALLEY UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNKNOWN NATIONS ↗
- Who funds KIDS' FOOD BASKET INC ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF WEST MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL OLYMPICS MICHIGAN INC ↗
- Who funds Paws With A Cause ↗
- Who funds COVENANT HOUSE MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds THE IRONMAN FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FEEDING AMERICA WEST MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds Literacy Center of West Michigan ↗
- Who funds ELE'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds Faith Hospice ↗
- Who funds EXODUS PLACE ↗
- Who funds GUIDING LIGHT MISSION INC ↗
- Who funds Hospice of Michigan Inc ↗
- Who funds TURNING POINT USA INC ↗
- Who funds HARBOR HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds WILDLIFE REHAB CENTER LTD ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS WESTERN MICHIGAN ↗
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: Grand Rapids Community Foundation · Peter C & Emajean Cook Foundation · Grand Haven Area Community Foundation Inc · Weller Family Foundation · The Korff Foundation · Ufp Industries Foundation · Douglas & Maria Devos Foundation · The Wege Foundation · Heart of West Michigan United Way · The Mercantile Bank Foundation · Edp Foundation · The David and Carol Van Andel Family Foundation
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 Brown Tassell 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Brown Tassell Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Brown Tassell Foundation 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.