· Private foundation
Edward & Helen Mardigian Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k11 grants · $32k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $218k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $265k
- $250k+1 grant · $2.0M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FUND FOR ARMENIAN RELIEF | $2,010,000 |
| MAYO CLINIC | $100,000 |
| EASTERN DIOCESE OF THE ARMENIAN EAS | $100,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $65,000 |
| ARMENIAN APOSTOLIC SOCIETY | $38,000 |
| DETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY | $25,000 |
| MICHIGAN ANIMAL RESCUE LEAGUE | $25,000 |
| ST NERSESS ARMENIAN SEMINARY | $25,000 |
| GIFT OF LIFE TRANSPLANT HOUSE | $25,000 |
| ST JOHNS ARMENIAN CHURCH | $20,000 |
| CHILDREN OF ARMENIA FUND INC | $20,000 |
| FULLER CENTER FOR HOUSING | $20,000 |
| KNIGHTS OF THE VARTAN INC | $10,000 |
| NTL ASSOC FOR ARM STUDIES RESEARCH | $10,000 |
| FORGOTTEN HARVEST | $5,000 |
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 (FY18–25, $64k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 8% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +37% since the first grant, against +4% for the ones you funded once.
38 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2025, 15 since wound down; 1 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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- FFFUND FOR ARMENIAN RELIEF INC7× · 2018–2025 · $9.6M · revenue +159% · 33% of their budget
- GOGIFT OF LIFE INC7× · 2018–2025 · $210k · revenue +24%
- DZDETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY7× · 2018–2025 · $144k · revenue +37%
Funded once
- MMMCLAREN-NORTHERN MI HOSPITAL FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $100k
- BFBEAUMONT FOUNDATIONone grant, 2018 · $100k
MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF AMERICAone grant, 2024 · $5k · revenue +4%
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 maintain and operate a hospital, ambulance and veterinary services for the care of animals. the maintenance and operation of kennels and suitable chambers for the humane destruction of wounded animals.
Our mission is conserving West Michigans ecologically critical land. We protect land by creating public nature preserves, providing support to communities and local governments in creating natural areas, and helping private landowners…
Be and create stewards for the water environment of michigan. provide high quality education for michigan's water professionals. educate and inform policy makers and the general public. promote scientifically sound environmental practices…
The friends are dedicated to the rescue, protection, and adoption of companion animals in need while inspiring the human-animal bond. we meet our mission by:-saving 100% of healthy and treatable animals.-providing high-quality animal care…
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.
To promote public health, safety, and welfare through the improvement of the quality and quantity of drinking water and the development and furtherance of understanding of the problems relating thereto.
To conserve the land, water and scenic character of leelanau county, and to provide educational programs to develop an understanding and appreciation of leelanau county's natural heritage.
To encourage and support its members as professionals responsible for the delivery of patient-focused care.
Marin humane transforms lives through exceptional animal care, humane education, and advocacy. every day, marin humane inspires compassion and positive relationships between people and animals.
As america's first animal shelter, founded in 1869, women's humane society dba women's animal center (wac), assists people in the community, saves the lives of animals, and improves the health of pets through its shelter and adoptions…
The Academy's mission is to enhance member career fulfillment and promote brain health for all.
Naples zoo is accredited by the american zoo & aquarium association (aza) and has numerous animal exhibits placed on its 45-acre site. (continued on schedule o)each exhibit is unique and designed to simulate typical conditions for the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of America and the most unlike its peers is St Nersess Armenian Seminary Inc. 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 50 years old; the field is 18. 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 — 3% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 49 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 FUND FOR ARMENIAN RELIEF INC ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN ANIMAL RESCUE LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds MAYO CLINIC ↗
- Who funds National Association for Armenian Studies and Research Inc ↗
- Who funds GIFT OF LIFE INC ↗
- Who funds DETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN OF ARMENIA FUND INC DBA CHILDREN OF ARMENIA FUND COAF ↗
- Who funds ST NERSESS ARMENIAN SEMINARY INC ↗
- Who funds CHILD SAFE MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds LITTLE TRAVERSE BAY HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds FORGOTTEN HARVEST INC ↗
- Who funds ARMENIAN ASSEMBLY OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds WALLOON LAKE ASSOCIATION AND CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds LEADER DOGS FOR THE BLIND ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF TROY ↗
- Who funds TIP OF THE MITT WATERSHED COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds Paws With A Cause ↗
- Who funds THE ARMENIAN EYECARE PROJECT ↗
- Who funds WALLOON LAKE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Little Traverse Conservancy Inc ↗
- Who funds WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds ST JOHN'S NORTHWESTERN ACADEMIES ↗
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: The Parsekian Foundation Inc · Robert a Semonian Charitable Trust · Hagopian Family Foundation · Levon & Claudia Nazarian Family Foundation Inc (Levon Nazarian Fd'N) · John Mirak Foundation · The James H and Marta T Batmasian Family Foundation Inc · Alex and Marie Manoogian Foundation · Sarkisian Foundation · Sjs Charitable Trust · United Armenian Charities Inc · Cherchian Family Foundation Inc · Zartarian 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 Edward & Helen Mardigian 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.
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% of income from government
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 Edward & Helen Mardigian Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Edward & Helen Mardigian 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.