· Public charity
Great Lakes Sports Commission
The mission of the GREAT LAKES SPORTS COMMISSION is to promote northern michigan as a premier destination for sports, recreation, and tourism.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 7 grants below total $252,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $347,715 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $95,715 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $8k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $95k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $150k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SAULT AREA CONVENTION AND VISITORS BUREAU | $150,000 |
| TRAVERSE CITY AREA PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $25,000 |
| GOGEBIC COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $25,000 |
| SWEDETOWN TRAILS CLUB | $22,100 |
| TOP SHELF HOCKEY SHOP LLC | $12,400 |
| PADDLE ANTRIM | $10,000 |
| ST IGNACE VISTORS BUREAU | $7,500 |
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 (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 77% 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 +727% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
3 repeat relationships — 0 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down; 7 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; $252k 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
- TCTRAVERSE CITY HORSE SHOW3× · 2020–2024 · $375k
- KSKIWANIS SKI CLUB INC2× · 2021–2022 · $182k · revenue +727% · 48% of their budget
- TCTRAVERSE CITY CURLING CLUB INC2× · 2020–2022 · $165k · revenue +264% · 100% of their budget
Funded once
- CPCOPPER PEAK INCgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $154k · revenue +322% · 44% of their budget
- MTMichigan Tech Universityone grant, 2023 · $150k
- 9A906 ADVENTURE TEAMone grant, 2023 · $150k · revenue -13%
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.
Maintains snowmobile trails in houghton and ontonagon counties in the upper peninsula of michigan.
Maintain & improve pere marquette michigan area snowmobile trails.
Promotion of, and access to, the sport of nordic skiing for the greater Madison WI community of all ages.
The mission of Vasa Ski Club is to promote access and enjoyment of Nordic skiing through instruction, recreation, and community.
Maintain the trails and facilities, operate ski venue and provide programs for the portland metro and columbia gorge areas.
To promote safe water skiing practice, water/boat safety and community spirit. 35 of the members are high school age or younger. The team hosts clinics and promotes community pride.
To maintain groomers and groom approximately 85 miles of trails in and around the city of aitkin. the club focuses on youth safety, trail maintenance, and donating to other non-profit organizations.
Create and maintain a non motorized multi-use trail system that provides a place to experience mountain biking, hiking, cross country skiing, snowshoeing, trail running and more in a natural environment while providing the opportunity to…
To develop and promote skiing and other winter sports in madison, wisconsin and environs, by improving existing facilities, development of new areas, and by sponsoring competitions and offering instruction, and do all other things…
The promotion of the sport of water skiing through group participation in shows and tournaments. the development and maintenance of facilities for water skiing and to stimulate interest in water skiing among non-skiers in the community.
To provide recreational ski trail to area residents and to visitors to gogebic county, michigan. to provide cross country ski lessons and to hold other fitness conscious events during the year.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Traverse City Curling Club Inc and the most unlike its peers is Paddle Antrim. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
12 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 12 of the 20 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 KIWANIS SKI CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds TRAVERSE CITY CURLING CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds COPPER PEAK INC ↗
- Who funds SAULT AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ↗
- Who funds 906 ADVENTURE TEAM ↗
- Who funds PRESERVE HICKORY ↗
- Who funds SWEDETOWN TRAILS CLUB ↗
- Who funds BOON SPORTS MANAGEMENT ↗
- Who funds PADDLE ANTRIM ↗
- Who funds FORBUSH CORNER NORDIC ↗
- Who funds ST IGNACE VISITORS BUREAU ↗
- Who funds Traverse Bay Area Youth Soccer 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: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
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 Great Lakes Sports Commission 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 Great Lakes Sports Commission?
Find your warmest path to Great Lakes Sports Commission 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.