· Private foundation
Hillquist Irrevocable Family Foundation Trust
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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 56% of HILLQUIST IRREVOCABLE FAMILY FOUNDATION TRUST’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k16 grants · $17k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $48k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $192k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHILDREN'S MUSEUM OF BRANCH COUNTY | $82,099 |
| FAMILIES FORWARD MICHIGAN INC | $60,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN - ROSS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS | $50,000 |
| MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY SOCIAL WORK | $26,500 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN - ENGINEERING | $21,800 |
| CRYSTAL COMMUNITY SKI CLUB | $5,000 |
| TIBBETS ENDOWMENT FUND | $2,500 |
| COGNITION | $2,000 |
| COLDWATER BAND BOOSTERS | $1,000 |
| KIWANIS CHILDRENS FUND | $1,000 |
| CHS NATIONAL ART HONOR SOCIETY | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| BRANCH COUNTY LITERACY COUNCIL | $1,000 |
| THE ARMY OF SURVIVORS | $840 |
| TIBBETS OPERA HOUSE FOUNDATION | $750 |
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 (FY18–23, $4k) 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 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 +43% since the first grant, against +21% for the ones you funded once.
38 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 23 since wound down; 6 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, 80% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $52k 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
- CMChildrens Museum of Branch County Inc8× · 2018–2025 · $317k · revenue +53% · 49% of their budget
- CCCRYSTAL COMMUNITY SKI CLUB4× · 2022–2025 · $18k · revenue +51%
- BABENZIE AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY8× · 2017–2024 · $8k · revenue +515%
Funded once
- MKMICHIGAN KINSHIP CARE COALITIONone grant, 2022 · $10k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $10k
- I1ISAIAH 11 HOUSE CALHOUN COUNTYone grant, 2023 · $10k
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.
We advocate and facilitate the development of a network of multipurpose recreational trails in Northern Lower Michigan.
To preserve the knowledge, skills and technology involved with the maintenance and operation of steam locomotives and to educate the public about the enormous impact that these machines had in the economic development of owosso and the…
To protect scenic and natural lands in northern Michigan.
The Historical Society of Michigan will foster in citizens a deeper understanding of and appreciation for all Michigan history through programs and publications; preserve and promote Michigan history through conferences, publications,…
To educate the public on the history of Manistee County
Education the museum functions as a time capsule using everday object and images to tell stories collected from the daily lives of the men, women, and families who built our community. the museum allows visitors to re-connect with the…
To preserve, record and maintain the historical information of the area between michigan's upper and lower peninsulas, known as michilimackinac.
Promoting the knowledge and appreciation of the local heritage among the citizens of frankenmuth, michigan.
The beaver island historical society has a mission to "share and preserve the unique history of beaver island and the archipelago". we advance our mission through well maintained collections and well-articulated exhibits in our clean and…
To preserve, restore, and maintain the buildings and grounds known as crisp point lighthouse located on county road 412, mcmillan township, luce county, michigan.
To promote bicycling and the rights of bicyclists on the roadways in michigan.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Benzie Area Historical Society and the most unlike its peers is University of Michigan. 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 34 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 9% of your grantees by number, and just 23% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
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 65 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 Childrens Museum of Branch County Inc ↗
- Who funds Kettering University ↗
- Who funds CRYSTAL COMMUNITY SKI CLUB ↗
- Who funds READERS ARE LEADERS ↗
- Who funds BENZIE AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds COGNITION ↗
- Who funds MUNSON HEALTHCARE FOUNDATIONS ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE BETSIE VALLEY TRAIL ↗
- Who funds THOMPSONVILLE AREA REVITALIZATION PROJEC ↗
- Who funds BENZIE SENIOR RESOURCES ↗
- Who funds INLAND SEAS EDUCATION ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds BENZIE CENTRAL SCHOOLS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds BENZIE COUNTY COMMUNITY CHEST ↗
- Who funds KIWANIS INTERNATIONAL 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: Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation · The Art and Mary Schmuckal Family Foundation · The Seabury Foundation · Rotary Charities of Traverse City · Herbert H and Barbara C Dow Foundation · Oleson Foundation · The Broad Family Foundation · Consumers Energy Foundation · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Hillquist Irrevocable Family Foundation Trust 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.
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How do I get to Hillquist Irrevocable Family Foundation Trust?
Find your warmest path to Hillquist Irrevocable Family Foundation Trust 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.