· Private foundation
Lavins Dolores & Paul Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
74% of Lavins Dolores & Paul Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Mayo Clinic, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 15 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2018, the last year Lavins Dolores & Paul Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 22 organizations, $550k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2018
- Under $10k28 grants · $49k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $102k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $100k
- $250k+1 grant · $300k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MAYO FOUNDATION | $300,000 |
| MICHIGAN OPERA THEATRE | $100,000 |
| CARMICHAELS AREA SCHOOL DISTRICT | $40,000 |
| KEVIN'S SONG FOUNDATION | $30,000 |
| ST AMBROSE PARISH | $11,811 |
| DETROIT PUBLIC TELEVISION | $10,000 |
| FRIENDS OF KENYAN ORPHANS | $10,000 |
| GROSSE POINTE PARK FOUNDATION | $7,500 |
| WRCJ 909 FM | $5,000 |
| DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS | $2,500 |
| EPILEPSY FOUNDATION OF MICHIGAN | $2,500 |
| DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $2,500 |
| DETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY | $2,500 |
| FORGOTTEN HARVEST | $2,000 |
| THE SALVATION ARMY | $2,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $43k) land where the poverty rate runs at 21%, 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
38 repeat relationships — 33 still active in FY2018, 5 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2018 (too recent to call). Read against FY2018, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2024, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- DPDETROIT PUBLIC MEDIA6× · 2017–2022 · $46k · revenue +49%
- GPGROSSE POINTE PARK FOUNDATION7× · 2017–2024 · $35k · revenue +60%
- FOFRIENDS OF KENYAN ORPHANS7× · 2018–2024 · $34k · revenue +20%
Funded once
- GPGROSSE POINTE THEATRE INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue +67%
- HPHOLT PUBLIC SCHOOLone grant, 2017 · $3k
- AIAMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR CANCER RESEARCHone grant, 2017 · $2k · revenue -34%
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 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.
Informing and educating the public and decision makers about environmental issues.
Delta dental fund's mission is to improve the oral health of the public and to advance dental science and the dental profession through research and education.
Mifma supports the viability of all community-driven marketplaces so that they can connect all consumers to local farms and businesses.
Creating healthy communities - together
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…
To encourage and support its members as professionals responsible for the delivery of patient-focused care.
Creating healthy communities - together
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.…
The chamber is the voice for business and works to power the economy for southeast michigan through public policy, advocacy and leading regional economic development and talent initiatives.
We believe that great schools are the cornerstone of a just and thriving community. ensuring that every child is able to attend a school that works is our moral and social imperative - our children deserve no less.
Helping healthcare get better. MPRO has more than 40 years of experience improving healthcare across the continuum of care using evidence-based and data-driven logic. MPRO also has extensive expertise in completing thoughtful and impartial…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and the most unlike its peers is Grosse Pointe Historical Society. 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 54 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 13% 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.
33 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. 33 of the 55 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 MAYO CLINIC ↗
- Who funds DETROIT OPERA ↗
- Who funds DETROIT PUBLIC MEDIA ↗
- Who funds GROSSE POINTE PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF KENYAN ORPHANS ↗
- Who funds DETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds EPILEPSY FOUNDATION OF MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS ↗
- Who funds DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds GLEANERS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK OF SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds FORGOTTEN HARVEST INC ↗
- Who funds Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries ↗
- Who funds NEIGHBORHOOD CLUB ↗
- Who funds THE TAIMEN FUND ↗
- Who funds GROSSE POINTE LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL OLYMPICS MICHIGAN INC ↗
- Who funds Hospice of Michigan Inc ↗
- Who funds GROSSE POINTE HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds GROSSE POINTE THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds Leadership Institute ↗
- Who funds MACKINAC CENTER ↗
- Who funds HILLSDALE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Young America's 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: Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · Alice Kales Hartwick Foundation · Mary I McLeod Foundation · Richard and Jane Manoogian Foundation · William & Martha Ford Fund · Joanne Nicolay Foundation · Raymond M & Jane E Cracchiolo Foundation · Doris J & Donald L Duchene Foundation C/O David Findling · McGregor Fund · Dte Energy Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Network for Good
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 Lavins Dolores & Paul 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 Lavins Dolores & Paul Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Lavins Dolores & Paul 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.