· Private foundation
Fred & Florence Dengler Scholarship Fund
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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k8 grants · $29k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $31k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY | $19,500 |
| SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY | $11,500 |
| MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY | $8,000 |
| GRAND VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
| GRACE CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF OLIVET | $5,000 |
| HOPE COLLEGE | $1,500 |
| MICHIGAN TECH UNIVERSITY | $1,500 |
| MADONNA UNIVERSITY | $1,500 |
| ALMA COLLEGE | $1,500 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY25–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 81% of your 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 +7% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
47 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2025, 39 since wound down; 2 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, 83% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k 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
- UOUniversity of Michigan4× · 2020–2024 · $15k · revenue +139%
- ACADRIAN COLLEGE5× · 2020–2024 · $12k · revenue +3%
- HCHOPE COLLEGE4× · 2022–2025 · $7k · revenue +7%
Funded once
- NUNORTHWOOD UNIVERSITYone grant, 2020 · $3k
- ROREGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGANone grant, 2023 · $3k
- DCDELTA COLLEGEone grant, 2021 · $2k
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.
Inspired by lutheran scholarly tradition and the liberal arts, augustana provides an education of enduring worth that challenges the intellect, fosters integrity and integrates faith with learning and service in a diverse world.
Wabash college is a liberal arts college for men that educates them to think critically, act responsibly, lead effectively, and live humanely.
Education - lagrange college challenges the minds and inspires the souls of its students. founded in 1831 and committed to its relationship with the united methodist church and its wesleyan and liberal arts traditions, the college supports…
Davenport university prepares individuals and organizations to excel in the knowledge-driven environment of the 21st century.
The mission of kalamazoo college is to prepare its graduates to better understand, live sucessfully within, and provide enlightened leadership to a richly diverse and increasingly complex world. as a highly selective, nationally renowened…
Greenville college d/b/a greenville university empowers students for lives of character and service through a transforming christ-centered education in the liberal arts, sciences, and professional studies.
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
Union college is a seventh-day adventist community of higher education, inspired by jesus christ, and dedicated to empowering students to learn, serve, and lead.
Macalester is committed to being a preeminent liberal arts college with an educational program known for its high standards for scholarship and its special emphasis on internationalism, multiculturalism, and service to society.
Spring arbor university is a community of learners distinguished by our lifelong involvement in the study and application of the liberal arts, total commitment to jesus christ as the perspective for learning and critical participation in…
Through innovative learning opportunities, individual student attention, and an unwavering commitment to inclusive educational access, simpson college cultivates a diverse community of learners to lead lives of meaning and purpose.
The mission of calvin university is to equip students to think deeply, to act justly, and to live wholeheartedly as christ's agents of renewal in the world.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Albion College and the most unlike its peers is Burr Oak 4-H Club - Michigan State. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 98 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.
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 Gerber Foundation · Myer & Lois Franklin Charitable Tr · Wilson Scholarship Fund · Speerstra Peter & Evelyn · The VombergTrumley Foundation · Kanitz Louis J & Golda I Main Ac · Richard Baidas Memorial Scholarship Fund · Culver's Foundation Inc · Charles Koch Foundation · Charles Stewart Mott Foundation · Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust 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 Fred & Florence Dengler Scholarship Fund 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.