· Public charity
Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation
The mission of desc is to cultivate local workforce talent to align with the needs of the business community through partnerships with key workforce agencies, faith- and community- based organizations, education and training institutions, and philanthropic, economic development and government entities.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 27 grants below total $23,811,119 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $46,656,657 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $22,845,538 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.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k5 grants · $99k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $616k
- $250k+17 grants · $23M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SERCO INC | $3,482,448 |
| PAYNE-PULLIAM SCHOOL OF RADE & COMMERCE | $3,042,481 |
| ROSS INNOVATIVE EMPLOYMENT SOLUTIONS CORPORATION | $2,475,218 |
| ARBOR E&T LLC DBA EQUUS WORKFORCE SOLUTIONS | $2,343,145 |
| ARAB COMMUNITY CENTER FOR ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL SERVICES (ACCESS) | $2,156,654 |
| DOWNRIVER COMMUNITY CONFERENCE | $1,885,495 |
| DEVELOPMENT CENTERS | $1,629,441 |
| CONNECT DETROIT | $1,365,434 |
| SER METRO DETROIT | $1,087,161 |
| MATRIX HUMAN SERVICES | $637,652 |
| GOODWILL INDUSTRIES OF GREATER DETROIT | $604,953 |
| SOUTHWEST ECONOMIC SOLUTIONS | $598,436 |
| URBAN HEIGHBORHOOD INITIATIVES | $459,650 |
| JACKETS FOR JOBS | $425,939 |
| THE YOUTH CONNECTION | $314,900 |
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, $29.6M) land where the poverty rate runs at 21%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 99% 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.
28 repeat relationships — 22 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down; 4 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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.1M 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
- PPPAYNE - PULLIAM SCHOOL OF TRADE & COMMERCE6× · 2020–2025 · $17M · revenue +61% · 92% of their budget
- CDCONNECT DETROIT6× · 2020–2025 · $8.9M · revenue +43% · 28% of their budget
- GHGESHER HUMAN SERVICES3× · 2020–2022 · $8.4M · revenue +62%
Funded once
- NSNEIGHBORHOOD SERVICE ORGANIZATIONone grant, 2022 · $59k · revenue -21%
- DPDETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOLS COMMUNITY DISTRICTone grant, 2020 · $46k
- DADETROIT AREA AGENCY ON AGINGgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $19k · revenue +55%
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 desc is to cultivate local workforce talent to align with the needs of the business community through partnerships with key workforce agencies, faith- and community- based organizations, education and training institutions,…
To enable african americans and people in need to reach their full human potential
CEC works with diverse stakeholders across Detroit to develop critical resources and system-level solutions that address common challenges faced by Detroit families in accessing quality education.
Promotion of activities to spur economic growth and revitalization in the city of detroit
Providing pathways to success for detroiters in need.
The Detroit Historical Society tells Detroit's stories and why they matter through its exhibits, programs, outreach, and the preservation and dissemination of its artifacts and collections.
Our mission is to advance detroit by driving engagement, development and programs that benefit businesses, residents and visitors throughout the downtown's urban core. we strengthen and support downtown detroit through strategic…
Informing and educating the public and decision makers about environmental issues.
The organization is known as the leader in the movement and is seen as the "go to" experts on environmental justice and sustainable redevelopment because of its knowledge and its network.
Local circles offers young detroiters an employment opportunity in youth- led research. by employing youth to do research, local circles intervenes on two simultaneous social issues facing young detroiters today: youth unemployment and…
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.…
Provides work activity for the mentally and physically disabled.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Ser Metro Detroit Jobs for Progress Inc and the most unlike its peers is Payne - Pulliam School of Trade & Commerce. 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 39 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 25% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 17% 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.
29 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. 29 of the 37 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 ARAB COMMUNITY CENTER FOR ECONOMIC AND S ↗
- Who funds PAYNE - PULLIAM SCHOOL OF TRADE & COMMERCE ↗
- Who funds DEVELOPMENT CENTERS INC ↗
- Who funds CONNECT DETROIT ↗
- Who funds GESHER HUMAN SERVICES ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST ECONOMIC SOLUTIONS INC ↗
- Who funds MATRIX HUMAN SERVICES ↗
- Who funds GOODWILL INDUSTRIES OF GREATER DETROIT ↗
- Who funds Jackets for Jobs Inc ↗
- Who funds The Youth Connection Inc ↗
- Who funds Urban Neighborhood Initiatives Inc ↗
- Who funds THE YUNION ↗
- Who funds YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit ↗
- Who funds ST VINCENT & SARAH FISHER CENTER ↗
- Who funds FOCUSHOPE ↗
- Who funds SER METRO DETROIT JOBS FOR PROGRESS INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES INC ↗
- Who funds METRO SOLUTIONS INC ↗
- Who funds LOCAL INITIATIVES SUPPORT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF METROPOLITAN DETROIT INC ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN STATE AFL-CIO WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN COMMUNITY ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds The Green Door Initiative ↗
- Who funds DETROIT CRIME COMMISSION ↗
- Who funds SEATTLE JOBS INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds NEIGHBORHOOD SERVICE ORGANIZATION ↗
- Who funds DETROIT AREA AGENCY ON AGING ↗
- Who funds ATLANTIC IMPACT ↗
- Who funds THE GREENING OF DETROIT ↗
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: United Way for Southeastern Michigan · Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · Dte Energy Foundation · The Kresge Foundation · The Skillman Foundation · Ford Philanthropy · McGregor Fund · Wayne-Metropolitan Community Action Agency Inc · The Ralph C Wilson Jr Foundation · WK Kellogg Foundation · Michigan Health Endowment Fund · Comerica Charitable 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 Detroit Employment Solutions Corporation 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.