Skip to content
Detroit Development Fund at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Detroit Development Fund

Detroit Development Fund (DDF) promotes the economic development of low to moderate income residents in the city of Detroit.

$306k
Granted FY2024still arriving
1
Grants FY2024still arriving
1
States reached
$250k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
0198% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Community Improvement$3.3MEmployment$54kFood & Nutrition$54kArts & Culture$41kScience & Tech$37kYouth Development$33kHealth$10kEnvironment$6kOther$0
02FY2024 · 1 grant

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 1 grants below total $250,000, the rows itemized in this filing. The $305,800 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $55,800 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.
$250,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$20M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Detroit Communtiy Loan Fund$250,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 21%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 99% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%Small Giant Community LLC: $33k → 11%Mack BrothersPurple Promise Films: $13k → 19%Prospects Unlimited LLC: $10k → 8%The Michigan Women's Foundation: $75k → 21%Small Giant Community LLC: $10k → 11%Mack Brothers Holding LLC: $10k → 19%Polished Lounge LLC: $10k → 8%Hot Sam's Quality Clothing: $22k → 21%Laughter In The Sun LLC: $10k → 21%Kapstone Employment Services LLC: $7k → 21%Detroit Community Loan Fund: $160k → 21%Detroit Community Loan Fund: $135k → 21%Detroit Community Loan Fund: $123k → 21%Detroit Community Loan Fund: $67k → 21%Klassic Mobile Gardens LLC: $10k → 21%Demitart Detroit: $7k → 21%IVY Kitchen Cocktails: $15k → 21%Watson Media Group LLC: $11k → 21%Lifeline Business Consulting LLC: $290k → 21%Detroit Communtiy Loan Fund: $250k → 21%Detroit Communtiy Loan Fund: $230k → 21%Detroit Community Loan Fund: $120k → 21%Detroit Community Loan Fund: $60k → 21%The Upper Row LLC: $10k → 21%Black Star Global Corporation: $10k → 21%Nerds Xpres LLC: $10k → 21%Swaggle LLC: $7k → 21%The Kitchen by Cooking with Que: $7k → 21%Swaggle LLC: $7k → 21%New Center Grill: $6k → 21%Eric D Huffman Insurance: $5k → 21%Detroit Smart Pages Newspaper: $8k → 21%Fit4Life Health and Fitness LLC: $10k → 21%FA Automotive LLC: $7k → 21%Teasers Boutique LLC: $8k → 21%Greater Detroit Culinary Services: $7k → 21%The Heat Factory LLC: $6k → 21%Grand Innovations: $623k → 21%Grand Innovations: $433k → 21%Grand Innovations: $330k → 21%The Right Productions: $10k → 21%Lush Yummies Pie Compnany LLC: $10k → 21%Detroit is the New Black LLC: $6k → 21%Julia's Cleaners: $5k → 21%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

82%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$2.9M · 5 repeat orgs$614k to everyone else

5 repeat relationships: 1 still active in FY2024, 4 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

5
29

Total granted

$2.9M
$614k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

-18%
+161%

Still filing today

0%
3%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • GI
    GRAND INNOVATION INC
    3× · 2017–2019 · $1.4M · revenue -18% · 97% of their budget
  • DC
    Detroit Communtiy Loan Fund
    8× · 2017–2024 · $1.1M
  • C5
    Corporate 52 Marketing Group LLC
    4× · 2017–2020 · $301k

Funded once

  • LB
    Lifeline Business Consulting LLC
    one grant, 2017 · $290k
  • TM
    THE MICHIGAN WOMEN'S FOUNDATIONgraduated
    one grant, 2017 · $75k · revenue +161%
  • HS
    Hot Sam's Quality Clothing
    one grant, 2020 · $22k
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field
04the grantee network

2 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 2 of the 34 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
1/2
Grantees still filing
1/2
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

GRAND INNOVATION INC: $1,385,000 · OtherGRAND INNOVATION INCDetroit Communtiy Loan Fund: $1,144,999 · OtherDetroit Communtiy Loan FundCorporate 52 Marketing Group LLC: $300,750 · OtherCorporate 52 Marketing Group LLCLifeline Business Consulting LLC: $290,000 · OtherLifeline Business Consulting LLC+29 more: $305,988 · Other+29 moreTHE MICHIGAN WOMEN'S FOUNDATION: $75,000 · Community Improvement
Other$3,426,737Community Improvement$75,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetGRAND INNOVATION INC: $1,385,000 over 3y, 97% of budgetTHE MICHIGAN WOMEN'S FOUNDATION: $75,000 over 1y, 4.4% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

  • Who funds GRAND INNOVATION INC ↗
  • Who funds THE MICHIGAN WOMEN'S FOUNDATION ↗

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.

Detroit Economic Grow…
Detroit Economic Growth AssociationMI30.9× affinity13 shared granteesties to 0 of 0Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Detroit Economic Growth Association

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Detroit Development Fund funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Detroit Development Fund. Bigger dots raise more.

2025
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%10%20%30%40%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Detroit Development Fund?

    Find your warmest path to Detroit Development Fund 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 34 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Detroit Development’s filings →

    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The endowment market
    who holds foundation money, and what just moved
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home