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Making Our Children Smile at a glance

· Public charity

Making Our Children Smile

We are organized exclusively for the charitable purpose including but not limited to raising & distributing funds to benefit children, veterans, as well as the poor, caring for the sick, and supporting charitable, educational, civic & other 501(c)(3)organizations doing good work.

$150k
Granted FY2017
7
Grants FY2017
1
States reached
$24k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its fieldRead
01What it funds
01FY2017 · 7 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 7 grants below total $94,299, the rows itemized in this filing. The $150,157 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $55,858 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2017

  • Under $10k1 grant · $9k
  • $10k–50k6 grants · $86k
$10,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$5
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Ennis Center For Children$24,210
Wigs 4 Kids$16,500
Food Bank of Eastern MI$15,000
VFW National Home For Children$10,000
Arthritis Foundation$10,000
Christ Child House$10,000
Gleaners Food Bank$8,589
02The need
02

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–17, $61k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 56% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%VFW National Home For Children: $10k → 9%Wigs 4 Kids: $17k → 10%Christ Child House: $10k → 21%Ennis Center For Children: $24k → 16%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its field
03the grantee network

7 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
7/7
Grantees still filing
4/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

ENNIS CENTER FOR CHILDREN INC: $24,210 · Human ServicesENNIS CENTER FOR CHILDREN INCMAGGIE'S WIGS4KIDS OF MICHIGAN INC: $16,500 · Human ServicesMAGGIE'S WIGS4KIDS OF MICHIGAN INCTHE CHRIST CHILD SOCIETY OF DETROIT: $10,000 · Human ServicesTHE CHRIST CHILD SOCIETY OF DETROITVFW NATIONAL HOME: $10,000 · Human ServicesVFW NATIONAL HOMEFood Bank of Eastern Michigan: $15,000 · Food & NutritionFood Bank of Eastern Michiga…GLEANERS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK OF SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN: $8,589 · Food & NutritionGLEANERS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK…ARTHRITIS FOUNDATION INC: $10,000 · HealthARTHRITIS FO…
Human Services$60,710Food & Nutrition$23,589Health$10,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetENNIS CENTER FOR CHILDREN INC: $24,210 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetFood Bank of Eastern Michigan: $15,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE CHRIST CHILD SOCIETY OF DETROIT: $10,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetARTHRITIS FOUNDATION INC: $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetVFW NATIONAL HOME: $10,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetGLEANERS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK OF SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN: $8,589 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Making Our Children Smile funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Making Our Children Smile. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    4report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 7 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2017, released 2017. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The endowment market
    who holds foundation money, and what just moved
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home