How much does Herbert H and Barbara C Dow Foundation give?

Herbert H and Barbara C Dow Foundation reported 28 grants totaling $1,456,000 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 24 and 29 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2024.

What does Herbert H and Barbara C Dow Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2025, its largest causes are Health (32%), Arts & Culture (16%), Human Services (13%).

Who are Herbert H and Barbara C Dow Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2025: Munson Healthcare Foundations ($430k), Interlochen Center for the Arts ($425k), Arizona Humane Society ($417k).

Does Herbert H and Barbara C Dow Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 8% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Herbert H and Barbara C Dow Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Herbert H and Barbara C Dow Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation, The Seabury Foundation, Oleson Foundation.

Where is Herbert H and Barbara C Dow Foundation based?

Herbert H and Barbara C Dow Foundation is based in MI.

Herbert H and Barbara C Dow Foundation

Herbert H and Barbara C Dow Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Herbert H and Barbara C Dow Foundation

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.

$1.5M

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$175k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Health$2.4MArts & Culture$1.2MHuman Services$951kFood & Nutrition$630kEducation$475kRecreation & Sports$435kAnimals$417kPublic Benefit$360kOther$0

02FY2025 · 28 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k1 grant · $6k
$10k–50k14 grants · $385k
$50k–250k13 grants · $1.1M

$40,000

Median grant

States reached

$34M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
PAUL OLIVER MEMORIAL HOSPITAL FOUNDATION AND MUNSON HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION	$175,000
MUNSON HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION	$150,000
GRAND TRAVERSE BAY YMCA(WEST)	$150,000
Individual grant recipient	$85,000
HERITAGE FOUNDATION	$75,000
TGEN FOUNDATION	$70,000
BARROW NEUROLOGICAL FOUNDATION	$60,000
PALM BEACH SYMPHONY	$50,000
FRIENDS OF POINT BETSIE LIGHTHOUSE	$50,000
ELIZABETH LANE OLIVER CENTER FOR THE ARTS	$50,000
BENZIE AREA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC	$50,000
HOUSING TRUST OF BENZIE	$50,000
INTERLOCHEN CENTER FOR THE ARTS	$50,000
PARADISE VALLEY COMMUNITY FOOD BANK	$40,000
HONOR HEALTH FOUNDATION	$40,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY20–25, $340k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

90%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$6.7M · 32 repeat orgs$745k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +39% since the first grant, against +34% for those funded once.

32 repeat relationships: 22 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$6.7M

$535k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+39%

+34%

Still filing today

75%

73%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $210k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Arts & CultureHealthHuman ServicesEnvironmentReligionRecreation & SportsOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

MH
MUNSON HEALTHCARE FOUNDATIONS
3× · 2023–2025 · $430k · revenue +57%
AH
Arizona Humane Society
6× · 2020–2025 · $417k · revenue +82%
BA
BENZIE AREA CHRISTIAN NEIGHBORS INC
6× · 2020–2025 · $410k · revenue +32%

Funded once

FA
FRANKFORT AREA COMMUNITY LAND TRUSTgraduated
one grant, 2023 · $100k · revenue +26% · 56% of their budget
MM
MUNSON MEDICAL CENTER
one grant, 2022 · $100k · revenue +11%
BS
BENZIE SHORES LIBRARY
one grant, 2020 · $75k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Arizona Community Foundation

To lead, serve and collaborate to mobilize enduring philanthropy for a better arizona.

Philanthropy

Banner -University Medical Group

Assist banner health complete its mission to make health care easier so life can be better by providing integrated & coordinated care & population health management.

Health

Lodestar Charitable Foundation

To perform the functions of, or to carry out the purposes of the arizona community foundation, an az nonprofit corporation, so long as the arizona community foundation, inc. remains a qualified organization.

—

Union Health System

To serve our communities by provding innovative and compassionate healthcare.

Health

Native Plant Trust Inc

The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.

Environment

United States Naval Institute

Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.

—

Heckscher Museum

Museum has a mission to create opportunties for everyone to experience art that broadens understanding of the past, fosters community connections to the present, and creates diverse possbilities for the future.

Arts & Culture

Naples Zoo Inc

Naples zoo is accredited by the american zoo & aquarium association (aza) and has numerous animal exhibits placed on its 45-acre site. (continued on schedule o)each exhibit is unique and designed to simulate typical conditions for the…

Animals

The Northern Michigan University Foundation

The nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.

Education

Bartlett Arboretum Association Inc

To cultivate and develop an expansive collection of trees, gardens, and plants for all to explore, enjoy and study; and to provide through education and stewardship, a greener, healthier, more beautiful environment.

Environment

Carson Tahoe Regional Healthcare

To enhance the health and well-being of the communities we serve.

Health

Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce

Greater phoenix chamber of commerce (the chamber) catalyzes regional prosperity with forward-thinking public policy, intentional economic growth, and diverse, prepared talent.

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Heritage Foundation; the most unlike its peers is Hillsdale College. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

35 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 35 of the 49 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

35/35

Grantees still filing

28/35

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$4,117,500Arts & Culture$1,235,000Health$704,000Religion$425,000Animals$417,000Public Benefit$360,000Human Services$340,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Grand Traverse Regional Community FoundationMI30.4× affinity12 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation · The Seabury Foundation · Oleson Foundation · The Art and Mary Schmuckal Family Foundation · Rotary Charities of Traverse City · David C and Ellen R Petrick Foundation · Hillquist Irrevocable Family Foundation Trust · William F and Patricia a Beck Family Foundation · Harry a and Margaret D Towsley Foundation · Indian River Community Foundation Inc · The Chicago Community Trust · National Philanthropic Trust

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Herbert H and Barbara C Dow Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Herbert H and Barbara C Dow Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

10report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–15%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Herbert H and Barbara C Dow Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Herbert H and Barbara C Dow 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.

Play a game based on Herbert H and Barbara C Dow’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home