· Private foundation
James a Ruppe Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k47 grants · $204k
- $10k–50k14 grants · $181k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $241k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MAYO CLINIC | $180,184 |
| BAY CLIFF HEALTH CAMP | $60,379 |
| CO-CATHEDRAL OF ST JOHN THE | $25,000 |
| MICHIGAN TECH FUND | $17,500 |
| OMEGA HOUSE | $16,000 |
| CALUMET HIGH SCHOOL | $13,000 |
| ST ALBERT THE GREAT UNIVERSITY | $13,000 |
| ST JUDE CHILDRENS RESEARCH HOSPITAL | $12,000 |
| CLK FOUNDATION | $12,000 |
| RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE | $11,500 |
| THE BOGGY CREEK GANG INC (CAMP | $11,000 |
| CLK COUNCIL OF CHURCHES | $10,000 |
| LITTLE BROTHERS FRIENDS OF ELDERLY | $10,000 |
| COPPER COUNTRY SENIOR MEALS INC | $10,000 |
| GOGEBIC COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $10,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $263k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
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 -8% for the ones you funded once.
82 repeat relationships — 58 still active in FY2024, 24 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $11k 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
- BCBAY CLIFF HEALTH CAMP8× · 2017–2024 · $313k · revenue +65%
- OHOMEGA HOUSE INC8× · 2017–2024 · $99k · revenue +58%
- LBLITTLE BROTHERS FRIENDS OF THE ELDERLY UPPER MICHIGAN CHAPTER8× · 2017–2024 · $65k · revenue +100%
Funded once
- KAKEWEENAW AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2023 · $13k
- TBTHE BOGGY CREEK GANG INCone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue 0%
- BBBIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF THE WESTERN UP (UP KIDS)one grant, 2022 · $5k
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.
The agency administers various governmental programs for the low income and elderly population in a three-county region in the northwestern upper peninsula of michigan.
Creating healthy communities - together
It is our mission at huron pines to conserve and enhance northern michigan's natural resources to ensure healthy water, protected places and vibrant communities. for alomst 50 years, our work across the forests, lakes and streams of…
To continuously improve the health of the communities we serve in the spirit of hope, compassion, respect and dignity.
The Agency is licensed by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services as a full-service adoption and foster care agency for families located in northern Michigan.
To receive and administer charitable endowment funds for the benefit of the residents of the upper peninsula of michigan and to provide administrative, communication and other support to affiliate members and other community foundations.
Working in the spirit of Gods universal love, our mission is to nurture, stabilize and strengthen the diverse families of the Upper Peninsula Community by providing mental health and addiction counseling services, child welfare services,…
Improving the health of the people in our communities by providing quality, compassionate care to everyone, every time.
To create opportunities of viability for health care providers in the upper peninsula of michigan and to improve access to quality health services for residents within their communities.
To strengthen, nuture and empower children and families for a brighter future by providing programs that preserve the dignity and enhance the well-being of families throughout michigan's upper peninsula, in a caring, compassionate and…
Parkview wabash hospital, inc. works to improve the health of our communities and provides quality health services to all who entrust their care to us.
The msu chm upper peninsula education corporation is a collaborative medical education corporation funded by the michigan state university college of human medicine and up health system marquette, dedicated to the medical education of…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Copper Shores Community Health Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Houghton County Historical Society. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 38 years old; the field is 11. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 27% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 18% 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.
42 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. 42 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.
- Who funds MAYO CLINIC ↗
- Who funds BAY CLIFF HEALTH CAMP ↗
- Who funds Michigan Tech Fund ↗
- Who funds OMEGA HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds LITTLE BROTHERS FRIENDS OF THE ELDERLY UPPER MICHIGAN CHAPTER ↗
- Who funds COPPER SHORES COMMUNITY HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FINLANDIA UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF BROWARD INC ↗
- Who funds COVENANT HOUSE FLORIDA INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF BROWARD COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds GOGEBIC COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COPPER COUNTRY SENIOR MEALS INC ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds COPPER COUNTRY ANGEL MISSION ↗
- Who funds LAKE LINDEN-HUBBELL PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds 31 BACKPACKS INC ↗
- Who funds The Calumet Theatre Company ↗
- Who funds HOLY CROSS HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds DIAL HELP INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds HOUGHTON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
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: Copper Shores Community Health Foundation · Keweenaw Community Foundation · The Klungness Family Foundation Inc · The Fb Heron Foundation · Community Foundation of the Upper Peninsula · Incrediblebank Foundation Inc · The Martin Family Foundation · United Way of Marquette County · West End Health Foundation · Superior Health Foundation · Steven C Leuthold Family Foundation · Feeding America West Michigan
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 James a Ruppe Foundation 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.
- United Way of Broward County Inc — 27% of income from government
- Covenant House Florida Inc — 1% of income from government
- Holy Cross Hospital Inc — 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.