· Private foundation
Burton & Elizabeth Upjohn Charitable Trust
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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 43% of BURTON & ELIZABETH UPJOHN CHARITABLE TRUST’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k20 grants · $77k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $32k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| KALAMAZOO LOAVES & FISHES | $12,000 |
| COMMUNITY HEALING CENTERS | $10,000 |
| YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION | $10,000 |
| FAMILY & CHILDREN SERVICES | $9,000 |
| MINISTRY WITH COMMUNITY OF KALAMAZOO | $6,000 |
| DISABILITY NETWORK SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN | $5,000 |
| HOUSING RESOURCESINC | $5,000 |
| SHERMAN LAKE YMCA OUTDOOR CENTER | $5,000 |
| FIRST DAY SHOE FUND | $5,000 |
| NEW GENESIS | $5,000 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER KALAMAZOO | $5,000 |
| MILESTONE SENIOR SERVICES | $5,000 |
| KALAMAZOO DROP IN CHILD CARE CENTER | $4,000 |
| AACORN FARM INC | $4,000 |
| RESIDENTIAL OPPORTUNITIES INC | $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 (FY20–25, $214k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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 +27% since the first grant, against -20% for the ones you funded once.
28 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2025, 7 since wound down; 2 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4k 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
- KLKALAMAZOO LOAVES & FISHES INC6× · 2020–2025 · $60k · revenue +33%
- YWYWCA WEST CENTRAL MICHIGAN6× · 2020–2025 · $58k · revenue +2%
Sherman Lake YMCA Outdoor Center6× · 2020–2025 · $45k · revenue +60%
Funded once
- ESELIZABETH S UPJOHN HEALING CENTERone grant, 2022 · $10k
- KCKALAMAZOO COUNTY READY 4Sone grant, 2023 · $6k · revenue -77%
PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF MICHIGANgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $5k · revenue +126%
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 mission of the kalamazoo humane society is to nuture the wellbeing of animals and people in our communities.
The mission of kalamazoo college is to prepare its graduates to better understand, live sucessfully within, and provide enlightened leadership to a richly diverse and increasingly complex world. as a highly selective, nationally renowened…
Assisting the community mental health boards of michigan in developing methods for mental health planning, care and treatment.
South county community services (sccs) is the only human service agency dedicated to serving the 25,000 residents who live in the southern tier of kalamazoo county. with a mission to work with families to improve quality of life, the…
The mission of the kalamazoo foundation for excellence is to support the goals of the city of kalamazoo, fund aspirational investments in the city, and empower kalamazoo residents to achieve the lives they want for themselves and their…
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.…
Mid michigan community action guides local residents on the path to self-sufficiency through empowerment, education and community enrichment.
To strengthen, nuture and empower children and families for a brighter future by providing programs that preserve the dignity and enhance the well-being of families throughout michigan's upper peninsula, in a caring, compassionate and…
To promote conditions favorable to job creation and business success in michigan.
To improve access to quality health care for all.
Offer hope to build a better tomorrow through mental health services.
To strengthen the capacity of individuals and families to improve their quality of life.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Kalamazoo Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Urban Alliance Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 43 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% 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 9% 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.
27 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. 27 of the 40 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 KALAMAZOO LOAVES & FISHES INC ↗
- Who funds YWCA WEST CENTRAL MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds FAMILY & CHILDREN SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY HEALING CENTERS ↗
- Who funds Sherman Lake YMCA Outdoor Center ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF KALAMAZOO INC ↗
- Who funds NEW GENESIS INC ↗
- Who funds DISABILITY NETWORK SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO LITERACY COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds Bronson Health Foundation ↗
- Who funds AACORN FARM INC ↗
- Who funds FIRST DAY SHOE FUND ↗
- Who funds SENIOR SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds MINISTRY WITH COMMUNITY INC ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO COUNTY READY 4S ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Urban Alliance Inc ↗
- Who funds HERITAGE COMMUNITY OF KALAMAZOO ↗
- Who funds LENDING HANDS OF MICHIGAN INC ↗
- Who funds MAYO CLINIC ↗
- Who funds SOUTH MICHIGAN FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds SPECIALIZED LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds HISPANIC AMERICAN COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS OF SW MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds THE JACKSON CHANCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PKD Foundation ↗
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: Marvin and Rosalie Okun Foundation · United Way of South Central Michigan · Kalamazoo Community Foundation · Dorothy U Dalton Foundation Inc · Harold and Grace Upjohn Foundation · Irving S Gilmore Foundation · Tyler-Little Family Foundation · Suzanne Upjohn Delano Parish Foundation · The Ronda E Stryker and William D Johnston Foundation · John E Fetzer Institute Inc · WK Kellogg Foundation · Ws & Lois Vandalson 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 Burton & Elizabeth Upjohn Charitable Trust 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 Burton & Elizabeth Upjohn Charitable Trust?
Find your warmest path to Burton & Elizabeth Upjohn Charitable Trust 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.