· Private foundation
Ernest S & Sally Micek Family Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 80% of ERNEST S & SALLY MICEK FAMILY FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ERNEST AND SALLY MICEK FAMILY CHARITABLE FUND | $180,533 |
| STEPHANIE LUETKEHANS CHARITABLE FUND IN MEMORY OF ERNEST AND SALLY MICEK | $180,532 |
| THE SCOTT F MICEK CHARITABLE FUND IN MEMORY OF ERNEST MICEK | $180,532 |
| JENNIFER J MICEK CHARITABLE FUND | $180,532 |
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, $47k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
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 +83% since the first grant, against +52% for the ones you funded once.
25 repeat relationships — 0 still active in FY2025, 25 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, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $722k 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
- BFBETWEEN FRIENDS7× · 2018–2024 · $27k · revenue +108%
- MYMILWAUKEE YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC8× · 2017–2024 · $21k · revenue +115%
- WIWILDERNESS INQUIRY INC8× · 2017–2024 · $20k · revenue +150%
Funded once
- SASCHLITZ AUDOBON NATURE CENTERone grant, 2024 · $3k
- NCNORTHWOODS CHILDRENS MUSEUMone grant, 2017 · $2k · revenue +15%
- NNNORTHCOTT NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $2k · revenue +52%
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 minnesota chamber of commerce proactively leads the business community statewide to: advance pro-business, responsible minnesota public policy that creates jobs and grows the econony; provde member services to address evolving business…
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.
To spark curiosity and creativity in all young children through positive, play-based learning experiences.
Creating powerful advocacy to enhance economic vitality in the minneapolis-st. paul region.
University school of milwaukee cultivates excellence in learning, leadership, and citizenship for prekindergarten through 12th grade students. students are engaged, known, and valued within our passionate independent school community…
The minnesota business partnership's mission is to maintain a high quality of life for all minnesotans by ensuring that the state's economy remains strong, globally competitive and its prospects for growth bright by working with elected…
We take a joyful, community-oriented approach to raising engaged citizens, deep learners, and brave adventurers with the skills, creativity, and heart needed to better the world.
The mission of the michigan science center is to inspire curious minds of all ages to discover, explore and appreciate science, technology, engineering and math in a creative, dynamic learning environment.
To inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy
Ignite the natural curiousity of every child through the power of play in a dynamic, awe-inspiring environment.
Goodwill industries of metropolitan chicago, inc. ("goodwill-chicago") is a nonstock, not-for-profit illinois corporation, whose sole member is goodwill industries of southeastern wisconsin, inc. ("goodwill"), a wisconsin nonstock,…
The minnesota jcc is dedicated to strengthening our community by providing inclusive programs that inspire personal growth, foster connection, and promote well-being through arts, culture, education, fitness, early childhood, day camp and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Feed My Starving Children Inc and the most unlike its peers is Cornerstone. 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 43 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% 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 15% 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.
23 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. 23 of the 33 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 BETWEEN FRIENDS ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds WILDERNESS INQUIRY INC ↗
- Who funds JEREMIAH PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds GREATER MINNEAPOLIS CRISIS NURSERY ↗
- Who funds CORNERSTONE ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART ↗
- Who funds NEXT DOOR FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE CHILDREN'S CHOIR INC ↗
- Who funds COURAGE KENNY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PROVIDENCE ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST CHRISTIAN HIGH SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds LOVE INC OF EASTERN CARVER COUNTY ↗
- Who funds GRANT PARK ORCHESTRAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER MILWAUKEE INC ↗
- Who funds INNERCITY TENNIS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FEED MY STARVING CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds WEST COOK COUNTY YOUTH CLUB ↗
- Who funds NORTHWOODS CHILDRENS MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds NORTHCOTT NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds GIRLS 4 SCIENCE ↗
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: Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Herbert H Kohl Charities Inc · The Minneapolis Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Charities Aid Foundation America · American Endowment Foundation · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Ernest S & Sally Micek Family 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.