· Public charity
First Steps Kent
To create a coordinated, integrated system of early childhood services that supports all families in kent county so every young child in kent county will enter kindergarten ready to succeed in school and in life.
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 · FY2024
- $10k–50k3 grants · $112k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $826k
- $250k+13 grants · $9.1M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FAMILY FUTURES | $1,281,697 |
| KENT COUNTY | $1,221,922 |
| KENT INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL DISTRICT | $1,220,605 |
| HEALTH NET OF WEST MICHIGAN | $1,031,865 |
| ARBOR CIRCLE | $918,557 |
| COREWELL HEALTH | $786,193 |
| GRAND RAPIDS COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $457,116 |
| CHERRY STREET HEALTH SERVICES | $451,807 |
| HEALTHY HOMES COALITION OF WEST MICHIGAN | $380,193 |
| READY FOR SCHOOL | $360,725 |
| BETHANY CHRISTIAN SERVICES | $318,658 |
| VIBRANT FUTURES | $314,879 |
| FAMILY PROMISE | $310,277 |
| MOMSBLOOM | $245,352 |
| YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF GREATER GRAND RAPIDS | $152,156 |
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, $4.6M) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 92% 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 +36% since the first grant, against +21% for the ones you funded once.
24 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down; 1 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $152k 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
- FFFAMILY FUTURES5× · 2020–2024 · $4.0M · revenue +113% · 32% of their budget
- CHCOREWELL HEALTH5× · 2020–2024 · $2.7M · revenue +86%
- HNHealth Net of West Michigan7× · 2017–2024 · $2.6M · revenue +90% · 26% of their budget
Funded once
- TYThe Young Men's Christian Association of Greater Grand Rapids (3019)one grant, 2024 · $152k · revenue +21%
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.
Michigan Family Resources mission is to deliver holistic family-centered services to children that promote their well-being and development.
The mission of the Center for Family Health is opening the door to health care for all.
To provide high quality community-oriented, patient-centered health services for all.
Leading the way in promoting healthy family living by reaching out to underserved populations and those who are in our community.
To work with parents, child care providers, businesses and the community to improve access to quality child care and early education so that every child enjoys safe, nurturing and inspiring care.
To provide comprehensive outpatient mental health services to over 5400 individuals and their families in a consumer driven person centered delivery system. Approximately 15% of our staff members are our clients who are involved in a…
Touching hearts, teaching minds, changing lives
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…
Helping families and neighborhoods succeed by providing a place and support to assure kids ages 0-5 are school ready and families are healthy and stable.
To strengthen, nuture and empower children and families for a brighter future by providing programs that preserve the dignity and enhance the well-being of families throughout michigan's upper peninsula, in a caring, compassionate and…
To ensure that policymakers prioritize the needs of the most challenged children from cradle to career.
Muskegon family care is a federally qualified health center with medical and dental clinics reaching out to uninsured and underinsured patients in muskegon county.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Vibrant Futures and the most unlike its peers is The Young Men's Christian Association of Greater Grand Rapids (3019). Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
19 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. 19 of the 25 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 FAMILY FUTURES ↗
- Who funds COREWELL HEALTH ↗
- Who funds Health Net of West Michigan ↗
- Who funds THE ARBOR CIRCLE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Cherry Street Services Inc ↗
- Who funds VIBRANT FUTURES ↗
- Who funds READY FOR SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds HEALTHY HOMES COALITION OF WEST MICHIGAN INC ↗
- Who funds FAMILY PROMISE OF GRAND RAPIDS ↗
- Who funds BETHANY CHRISTIAN SERVICES ↗
- Who funds MOMSBLOOM INC ↗
- Who funds Early Learning Neighborhood Collaborative ↗
- Who funds WEST MICHIGAN PARTNERSHIP FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds EASTERSEALS MORC HEALTH CARE INC ↗
- Who funds HISPANIC CENTER OF WESTERN MICHIGAN INC ↗
- Who funds DA BLODGETT - ST JOHN'S ↗
- Who funds COMPREHENSIVE THERAPY CENTER ↗
- Who funds The Young Men's Christian Association of Greater Grand Rapids (3019) ↗
- Who funds HEART OF WEST MICHIGAN UNITED WAY ↗
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: Grand Rapids Community Foundation · Corewell Health Group Return · Michigan Health Endowment Fund · Heart of West Michigan United Way · Frey Foundation · The Wege Foundation · The Community Foundation of the Holland/Zeeland Area Inc · WK Kellogg Foundation · The Sebastian Foundation · Douglas & Maria Devos Foundation · Feeding America West Michigan · Health Net of West Michigan
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 First Steps Kent 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.