· Private foundation
Ethel and James Flinn Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k38 grants · $141k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $185k
- $50k–250k36 grants · $2.6M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY | $200,000 |
| SOUTHWEST DETROIT COMMUNITY JUSTICE CENTER | $100,000 |
| OAKLAND COMMUNITY HEALTH NETWORK | $100,000 |
| HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM | $100,000 |
| ZAMAN INTERNATIONAL | $100,000 |
| THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY | $100,000 |
| HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM | $100,000 |
| METRO SOLUTIONS | $100,000 |
| HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM | $100,000 |
| DETROIT WAYNE INTEGRATED HEALTH NETWORK | $75,000 |
| PACKARD HEALTH | $75,000 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN | $75,000 |
| SAMARITAS | $75,000 |
| OAKLAND COMMUNITY HEALTH NETWORK | $75,000 |
| HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM | $75,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $2.7M) land where the poverty rate runs at 19%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 85% 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 12% of Ethel and James Flinn Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 98% of the giving stays in MI; read by stated purpose it is 86% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
92 repeat relationships — 48 still active in FY2024, 44 since wound down; 19 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 73% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $770k 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
- HFHENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM5× · 2020–2024 · $850k · revenue +48%
- THTRINITY HEALTH - MICHIGAN3× · 2021–2023 · $375k · revenue +18%
- SFSTARFISH FAMILY SERVICES INC4× · 2020–2024 · $252k · revenue +11%
Funded once
- THTRINITY HEALTH-MICHIGAN (AKA IHA)one grant, 2023 · $150k
- SFSAMARITAS FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $125k · revenue -82%
- AHAVALON HEALING CENTER (AKA WAYNE COUNTY SAFE PROGRAM)one grant, 2023 · $100k
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.
Assisting the community mental health boards of michigan in developing methods for mental health planning, care and treatment.
Detroit central city community mental health's mission is to achieve wellness in the community by providing an integrated array of mental health, housing and substance abuse services with diginity and respect.
Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw County D/B/A Catholic Charities Washtenaw County provides diverse, holistic social services including adoption and pregnancy counseling, food and basic needs assistance, domestic and child abuse…
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.
Creating healthy communities - together
Creating healthy communities - together
The mission of the Center for Family Health is opening the door to health care for all.
The organization's mission is to support community-based, stakeholder driven training for care teams including physicians, care managers, care coordinators, medical assistants and behavioral health specialists; facilitate training and…
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…
Community & home supports, inc. was founded to help people and communities address poverty and homelessness. we strive to fulfill our purpose by developing, leading, and participating in collaborative and innovative efforts that support…
Mid michigan community action guides local residents on the path to self-sufficiency through empowerment, education and community enrichment.
Informing and educating the public and decision makers about environmental issues.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Luella Hannan Memorial Foundation. 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 37 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) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
124 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. 124 of the 175 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 HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM ↗
- Who funds CHILDRENS CENTER OF WAYNE COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST DETROIT COMMUNITY JUSTICE ↗
- Who funds TRINITY HEALTH - MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN'S CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds STARFISH FAMILY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds ZAMAN INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAS ↗
- Who funds VISTA MARIA ↗
- Who funds Packard Health Inc ↗
- Who funds NAMI MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds MENTAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION IN MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds COMMON GROUND ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN HEALTH ENDOWMENT FUND ↗
- Who funds UMRC-PORTER HILLS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DETROIT PUBLIC SAFETY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE GUIDANCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds SPECTRUM HUMAN SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds BEAUMONT HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DETROIT INSTITUTE FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds ROSE HILL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds AVALON HEALING CENTER ↗
- Who funds CAREHOUSE OF OAKLAND COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MARINERS INN ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OAKLAND FAMILY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds CASS COMMUNITY SOCIAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds DOWNTOWN DETROIT PARTNERSHIP INC ↗
- Who funds ORCHARDS CHILDREN'S SERVICES INC ↗
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 · United Way for Southeastern Michigan · Michigan Health Endowment Fund · Dte Energy Foundation · Children's Hospital of Michigan Foundation · The Skillman Foundation · The Carls Foundation · The Kresge Foundation · The Jewish Fund · Ford Philanthropy · The Ralph C Wilson Jr Foundation · McGregor 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 Ethel and James Flinn 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 Ethel and James Flinn Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Ethel and James Flinn 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.