· Private foundation
Ford Philanthropy
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
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k20 grants · $144k
- $10k–50k78 grants · $1.6M
- $50k–250k74 grants · $7.6M
- $250k+35 grants · $32M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GLOBAL GIVING FOUNDATION INC | $9,998,553 |
| TECHFORCE FOUNDATION | $2,550,000 |
| UNITED WAY FOR SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN | $2,000,000 |
| GOVERNORS HIGHWAY SAFETY ASSOCIATION | $1,718,833 |
| GLEANERS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK | $1,394,211 |
| HENRY FORD LEARNING INSTITUTE | $1,100,000 |
| FEONIX - MOBILITY RISING | $1,000,000 |
| KELLOGG COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION | $800,000 |
| UNITED WAY OF WEST TENNESSEE | $770,000 |
| AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS | $683,300 |
| THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS | $680,000 |
| GLOBAL GIVING FOUNDATION INC | $655,500 |
| THE EDISON INSTITUTE INC | $600,000 |
| LAST MILE EDUCATION FUND | $600,000 |
| VISION TO LEARN | $515,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $18.6M) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 95% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +32% since the first grant, against +20% for the ones you funded once.
505 repeat relationships — 154 still active in FY2025, 351 since wound down; 42 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, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.8M 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
GLOBALGIVING FOUNDATION INC9× · 2017–2025 · $90M · revenue +34%- GHGOVERNORS HIGHWAY SAFETY ASSOCIATION9× · 2017–2025 · $24M · revenue +57% · 77% of their budget
UNITED WAY FOR SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN9× · 2017–2025 · $18M · revenue +55%
Funded once
- MCMICHIGAN CENTRAL CENTER FOR MOBILITY AND SOCIETYone grant, 2023 · $2.0M · 46% of their budget
- EENACTUSone grant, 2017 · $599k
- RTRanken Technical Collegeone grant, 2022 · $424k · revenue +2%
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.
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.…
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.…
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
United way's mission is to end intergenerational poverty in our region by harnessing, leveraging and strategically investing the collective power of donors, advocates and volunteers, to help individuals and families break the cycle of…
The association of washington cities builds connections between our state's diverse cities and towns, while providing our members with the support needed to thrive through delivery of data-driven education, nationally recognized pooling…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.
To inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy
American gas association's (the association) mission is to develop and advocate for informed, innovative, and durable policy that fulfills our nation's energy needs, environmental aspirations and economic potential. we are committed to…
The common application is a not-for-profit membership organization of over 1,100 colleges and universities across the globe committed to access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. every year, over 1.5 million students…
Informing and educating the public and decision makers about environmental issues.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and the most unlike its peers is Edsel & Eleanor Ford House. 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 35 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) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% 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.
781 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. 781 of the 1,007 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 GLOBALGIVING FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GOVERNORS HIGHWAY SAFETY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY FOR SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds HENRY FORD LEARNING INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds GLEANERS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK OF SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS ↗
- Who funds HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds DETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE EDISON INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN THANKSGIVING PARADE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TECHFORCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ENACTUS ↗
- Who funds Feeding America ↗
- Who funds LULAC NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL SERVICE CENTERS INC ↗
- Who funds HENRY FORD ESTATE ↗
- Who funds FEONIX - MOBILITY RISING ↗
- Who funds DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds TEAM RUBICON INC ↗
- Who funds BREAKTHROUGH T1D ↗
- Who funds DETROIT OPERA ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF WEST TENNESSEINC STARKS ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN CENTRAL CENTER FOR MOBILITY AND SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds LULAC INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds HISPANIC FEDERATION INC ↗
- Who funds FOCUSHOPE ↗
- Who funds Accounting Aid Society ↗
- Who funds POPE FRANCIS CENTER ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY ↗
- Who funds ACCELERATE 500 INC ↗
- Who funds VISION TO LEARN ↗
- Who funds Southwest Detroit Immigrant and Refugee Center ↗
- Who funds LATIN AMERICANS FOR SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INC ↗
- Who funds Living Arts ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF MICHIGAN 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: Dte Energy Foundation · United Way for Southeastern Michigan · Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · The Skillman Foundation · The Ralph C Wilson Jr Foundation · Comerica Charitable Foundation · Children's Hospital of Michigan Foundation · The Kresge Foundation · Hudson-Webber Foundation · McGregor Fund · Michigan Health Endowment Fund · Flagstar Foundation Inc
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 Ford Philanthropy 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.
- Education Development Center Inc — 65% of income from government
- Oregon Food Bank — 21% of income from government
- City Year Inc — 11% of income from government
- Children's Hospital Corporation — 10% of income from government
- The United Way of Lee County Inc — 1% of income from government
- The Education Fund Inc F/K/a Dade Public Education Fund in — 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 Ford Philanthropy?
Find your warmest path to Ford Philanthropy 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.