· Private foundation
Joseph G and Helen I Zimmerman 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 clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k5 grants · $25k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $80k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $168k
- $250k+1 grant · $1.5M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ALMA COLLEGE | $1,500,000 |
| ALMA COLLEGE | $100,000 |
| CITY OPERA HOUSE | $67,662 |
| ELK RAPIDS DISTRICT LIBRARY | $10,000 |
| OASIS FAMILY RESOURCE CENTER | $10,000 |
| TRAVERSE CITY PHILHARMONIC | $10,000 |
| LITTLE RASCALS CAT SANCTUARY INC | $10,000 |
| CHERRYLAND HUMANE SOCIETY | $10,000 |
| WOMEN'S RESOURCE CENTER | $10,000 |
| CADILLAC ROTARY CHARITIES | $10,000 |
| WCMU PUBLIC MEDIA | $10,000 |
| TC PAW CAT RESCUE | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| VETERANS FOR PEACE CHAPTER 50 | $5,000 |
| LAKE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $5,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY21–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 62% 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 +147% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
4 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2025, 0 since wound down; 11 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, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $148k 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
- ACALMA COLLEGE5× · 2021–2025 · $2.4M · revenue -2%
- CHCHERRYLAND HUMANE SOCIETY5× · 2021–2025 · $1.4M · revenue +147%
- WRWOMEN'S RESOURCE CENTER2× · 2024–2025 · $20k
Funded once
- CFCHILD & FAMILY SERVICES OF NORTHWESTERN MICHIGAN INCone grant, 2024 · $5k · revenue -4%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2024 · $5k
- LTLITTLE TRAVERSE BAY HUMANE SOCIETYone grant, 2024 · $5k · revenue 0%
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.
To shelter and find forever homes for homeless dogs and cats.
Our mission is to save the lives of animals while enriching the lives of humans.
To operate an animal shelter.
Maintain and care for incoming animals.
Humane society of southwestern michigan exists to provide shelter and care for sick, homeless and unwanted animals. in addition, the organization provides adoption services for the animals in its care.
Rescue & find homes for cats; spay, nueter and adopt out as many cats as possible. Provice foster care homes for unadopted. Provide Vet care. Educate the public about over population available programs.
Prevention/treatment of cruelty to animals
Animal shelter - provide a safe haven for animals without homes.
To operate as an animal shelter by taking in stray or surrendered animals. We provide medical care and surgical care, including spaying and neutering of all animals if needed prior to adoption.
The organization is a no kill animal shelter which cares for homeless or abandoned dogs and cats and supervises their adoption and neutering when taken home by a commmunity member.
Rescue animals & provide vet services
To work for the humane treatment of all animals, to shelter adoptable animals until loving and caring homes can be found for them,and to educate the community about responsible pet ownership and the importance of spay/neuter.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Little Traverse Bay Humane Society and the most unlike its peers is Fraternal Order of Eagles Aerie 383. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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. 9 of the 22 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 ALMA COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds CHERRYLAND HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Little Rascals Cat Sanctuary Inc ↗
- Who funds TRAVERSE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA D/B/A TRAVERSE CITY PHILHARMONIC ↗
- Who funds CHILD & FAMILY SERVICES OF NORTHWESTERN MICHIGAN INC ↗
- Who funds LITTLE TRAVERSE BAY HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds LEELANAU CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds FRATERNAL ORDER OF EAGLES AERIE 383 ↗
- Who funds TC PAW CAT RESCUE ↗
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: Oleson Foundation · Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Joseph G and Helen I Zimmerman 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.