· Public charity
Char-Em United Way Inc
Char-Em United Way serves as a catalyst to develop new strategies and services to meet currently unmet needs, primarily in the areas of education, income stability, and community health.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 6 grants below total $100,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $105,003 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $5,003 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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Northwest Michigan Works | $25,000 |
| Salvation Army | $20,000 |
| Great Start Collaborative | $20,000 |
| Womens Resource Center of Nor | $15,000 |
| NW MI Habitat for Humanity | $10,000 |
| Manna | $10,000 |
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 (FY17–21, $320k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 93% 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.
10 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2021, 4 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2021, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- NMNORTHWEST MICHIGAN COMMUNITY ACTION5× · 2017–2021 · $190k · revenue +35%
- WRWomens Resource Center of Northern Michigan Inc5× · 2017–2021 · $84k · revenue +105%
- TMTHE MANNA FOOD PROJECT INC DBA - THE MANNA FOOD PROJECT5× · 2017–2021 · $75k · revenue +23%
Funded once
- HDHealth Department of Northwest Michiganone grant, 2017 · $8k
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.
To create and preserve quality affordable housing options for northern michigan residents through education, development, and partnering with local communities.
To help provide safe, accessible, and affordable housing in Northwest Michigan.
To provide housing and case management services for the homeless and mentally ill within the community.
Support other community human service agencies through mini grant process and to facilitate programs to meet the needs of the communities the organization serves.
To provide Northeast Michigan with referrals and information to assist with essential needs.
Provides non-emergency transportation and food assistance to needy residents of whitmore lake, michigan and the surrounding areas.
To provide quality medical and dental primary care services to persons of all ages in northwest michigan regardless of ability to pay.
We bring food to neighbors, help vulnerable people find home, and provide empowering employment through our community-supported social enterprise and collaborative partnerships.the 2023 990 was for 10/1-12/31/23 due to an accounting period…
The mission of gw homeless services of northern michigan, inc is to provide safe, supportive shelter to individuals experiencing homelessness.the 2023 990 was for 10/1-12/31/23 due to an accounting period change.
To provide in-home and in-school intervention, treatment and crisis counseling to youth and families in northern michigan and to assure that children are safe in their homes.
Provide support services for families and children.
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 Northwest Michigan Community Action and the most unlike its peers is Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northwe. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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. 9 of the 11 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 NORTHWEST MICHIGAN COMMUNITY ACTION ↗
- Who funds Womens Resource Center of Northern Michigan Inc ↗
- Who funds THE MANNA FOOD PROJECT INC DBA - THE MANNA FOOD PROJECT ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST MICHIGAN WORKS INC ↗
- Who funds BERGMANN CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST MI HABITAT FOR HUMANITY ↗
- Who funds BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF NORTHWE ↗
- Who funds STATE YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC HUMAN SERVICES 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: Petoskey-Harbor Springs Area Community Foundation · Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation · Consumers Energy Foundation · Charlevoix County Community Foundation · Dte Energy Foundation · The Offield Family Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Char-Em United Way 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.