· Private foundation
James and Cleo Hamilton Family Charitable 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
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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Brilliant Detroit | $3,000 |
| Davis County Historical Society | $3,000 |
| Davis County Dollars for Scholars | $2,500 |
| Detroit Institute of Arts | $2,000 |
| Grinnell College | $1,846 |
| Metropolitan United Methodist | $1,700 |
| Westside Culturall and Athletic Clu | $1,000 |
| Forgotten Harvest | $1,000 |
| Gleaners | $1,000 |
| Childrens Center | $550 |
| Ruth Ellis Center | $550 |
| Clark Park Coalition | $550 |
| Cass Community Social Services | $500 |
| Living Arts | $500 |
| Planned Parenthood | $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.
Your human-services grants (FY20–25, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 21%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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 +46% since the first grant, against -23% for the ones you funded once.
61 repeat relationships — 41 still active in FY2025, 20 since wound down; 3 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $420 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
THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS6× · 2020–2025 · $12k · revenue +14%
FORGOTTEN HARVEST INC6× · 2020–2025 · $9k · revenue +2%
BRILLIANT DETROIT4× · 2022–2025 · $9k · revenue +16%
Funded once
- MMMetropolitan Methodist Churchone grant, 2020 · $2k
- EGEden Gardens Community Aaaociationone grant, 2022 · $538
- DRDetroit Rescue Mission Ministriesone grant, 2021 · $200 · revenue -25%
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.
Informing and educating the public and decision makers about environmental issues.
Inspire awareness, appreciation and passion for michigan's history and stories, culture and environment through the arts.
Promotion of activities to spur economic growth and revitalization in the city of detroit
The organization was founded by a group of concerned citizens, working in cooperation with the detroit city council, to shape food policy and to work for a more localized, more just, and environmentally friendly food system. the…
The organization is known as the leader in the movement and is seen as the "go to" experts on environmental justice and sustainable redevelopment because of its knowledge and its network.
The mission of the Detroit Zoological Society (DZS) is to create meaningful connections between people, animals and the natural world so all can thrive. The vision of the DZS is to be a force for positive change in a world where animals…
To create life-enriching experiences that build meaningful relations, foster personal and professional growth, and celebrate culture in the heart of detroit.
The chamber is the voice for business and works to power the economy for southeast michigan through public policy, advocacy and leading regional economic development and talent initiatives.
Endeavor Detroit is leading the high-impact entrepreneurship movement in Michigan and the wider Great Lakes region, catalyzing long-term economic growth by selecting, mentoring, and supporting the best high-impact entrepreneurs in the…
To strategically solve problems through collaboratives with City of Detroit Departments, nonprofit organizations and local grant makers in order to secure the maximum federal, state, and national foundation dollars for the city Detroit.
To improve and save lives through compassionate care, community engagement and advocacy for animals.
Business leaders for michigan is a nonprofit, nonpartisan statewide organization driven by ceos from the state's leading employers, all working toward a shared goal: making michigan a top 10 state for jobs, talent and a thriving economy.…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Detroit Public Media and the most unlike its peers is Historic Boston Edison Association. 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 40 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 17% 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.
36 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. 36 of the 82 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 THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS ↗
- Who funds FORGOTTEN HARVEST INC ↗
- Who funds GLEANERS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK OF SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds BRILLIANT DETROIT ↗
- Who funds Living Arts ↗
- Who funds CASS COMMUNITY SOCIAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds RUTH ELLIS CENTER ↗
- Who funds CLARK PARK COALITION ↗
- Who funds DOWNTOWN BOXING GYM YOUTH PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST SOLUTIONS INC ↗
- Who funds Preservation Detroit ↗
- Who funds POPE FRANCIS CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE GREENING OF DETROIT ↗
- Who funds THE HEAT AND WARMTH FUND ↗
- Who funds BLOOMFIELD MAIN STREET INC ↗
- Who funds FREEDOM HOUSE DETROIT ↗
- Who funds DETROIT PUBLIC THEATRE ↗
- Who funds DETROIT PUBLIC MEDIA ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN HISTORIC PRESERVATION NETWORK ↗
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: Dte Energy Foundation · Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · The Kresge Foundation · Ford Philanthropy · United Way for Southeastern Michigan · The Skillman Foundation · United Jewish Foundation · Flagstar Foundation Inc · WK Kellogg Foundation · Charles Stewart Mott Foundation · Marjorie and Maxwell Jospey Foundation · McGregor 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 James and Cleo Hamilton Family Charitable 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 James and Cleo Hamilton Family Charitable Trust?
Find your warmest path to James and Cleo Hamilton Family Charitable 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.