· Private foundation
Lion Rock 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 FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k11 grants · $26k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $103k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $200k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $200,000 |
| THE POTTER'S HOUSE | $22,500 |
| EVERBLOOM MONTESSORI COOPERATIVE | $15,000 |
| WEDGWOOD CHRISTIAN SERVICES | $12,500 |
| LITERACY CENTER OF WEST MICHIGAN | $12,500 |
| UNITED WAY OF METRO CHICAGO | $10,000 |
| WORKLIFE PARTNERSHIP | $10,000 |
| SCHOOLS FOR SIERRA LEONE | $10,000 |
| THE SOURCE | $10,000 |
| SECOM RESOURCE CENTER | $6,000 |
| GRAND RAPIDS CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS | $5,000 |
| LIFEQUEST | $4,500 |
| FAMILY NETWORK OF WYOMING | $3,000 |
| PINE REST FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,000 |
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 (FY19–25, $73k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 93% 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 +39% since the first grant, against +34% for the ones you funded once.
26 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2025, 13 since wound down; 7 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, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $34k 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
- GRGRAND RAPIDS CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS5× · 2020–2025 · $175k · revenue +43%
- TPThe Potters House7× · 2019–2025 · $98k · revenue +72%
- LCLiteracy Center of West Michigan7× · 2019–2025 · $86k · revenue +85%
Funded once
- IICCFone grant, 2024 · $21k
- AIActon Institute for the Study of Religion and Libertyone grant, 2024 · $15k · revenue 0%
- UMUNITED METHODIST COMMUNITY HOUSEone grant, 2024 · $15k · revenue +3%
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.
Michigan Family Resources mission is to deliver holistic family-centered services to children that promote their well-being and development.
Uniting christian faith leaders to serve with humility and love for the flourishing of all in our community.
None
Leading the way in promoting healthy family living by reaching out to underserved populations and those who are in our community.
The African Resource Center informs connects and equips African immigrants in West Michigan with people and resources to foster a flourishing community in which recent African immigrants can prosper emotionally economically and socially.
Mid michigan community action guides local residents on the path to self-sufficiency through empowerment, education and community enrichment.
Focusing community resources to meet community needs the United Way of Marquette County works to advance the common good by connecting people with health and human care issues they are concerned about and to provide the oversight the…
To present west michigan audiences with high quality broadway productions and to provide student arts education programs, enriching the community through professional performing arts, as well as to expand the diversity of theatre in the…
The michigan christian home dba beacon hill at eastgate, a not-for-profit corporation, provides housing and health services in a christian environment for older adults, thus enabling them to meet their ongoing physical, social and…
The nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.
The mission of great lakes community action partnership is to create partnerships and opportunites to help individuals, families and communities thrive.
To assist people with low or moderate income to obtain safe and affordable housing
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Grand Rapids Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Michigan Power Futbol Academy. 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 36 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
35 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. 35 of the 67 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 GRAND RAPIDS CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds The Potters House ↗
- Who funds Literacy Center of West Michigan ↗
- Who funds WORKLIFE PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds WEDGWOOD CHRISTIAN SERVICES ↗
- Who funds SOUTH END COMMUNITY OUTREACH MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty ↗
- Who funds UNITED METHODIST COMMUNITY HOUSE ↗
- Who funds AFFINITY MENTORING ↗
- Who funds KIDS' FOOD BASKET INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO INC ↗
- Who funds THE RIGHT PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds GRAND RAPIDS INITIATIVE FOR LEADERS ↗
- Who funds Ronald McDonald House Global ↗
- Who funds ROOSEVELT PARK MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds DAVENPORT UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds MATTHEW 2540 HEARTSIDE INC ↗
- Who funds GRANT ME HOPE ↗
- Who funds RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES WESTERN MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds DA BLODGETT - ST JOHN'S ↗
- Who funds GRAND RAPIDS URBAN LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds CREATIVE ARTS REPERTOIRE ENSEMBLE ↗
- Who funds FAMILY NETWORK ↗
- Who funds GRAND RAPIDS COMMUNITY 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 Rapids Community Foundation · Douglas & Maria Devos Foundation · Peter C & Emajean Cook Foundation · Frey Foundation · The Mercantile Bank Foundation · Heart of West Michigan United Way · Steelcase Foundation · The Meijer Foundation · The Wege Foundation · WK Kellogg Foundation · The Community Foundation of the Holland/Zeeland Area Inc · Daniel & Pamella Devos 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 Lion Rock 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.