· Private foundation
Marion & Marlene Betten Foundation
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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k63 grants · $213k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $70k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $141k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CASCADE CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH | $85,500 |
| CHRISTIAN REFORMED CONFERENCE GROUNDS | $55,000 |
| CHILDREN'S HOPE CHEST | $33,000 |
| CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH NORTH AMERICA | $15,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $12,000 |
| FEEDING AMERICA | $10,000 |
| WEDGEWOOD CHRISTIAN SERVICES | $7,900 |
| ADA CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS | $7,800 |
| GRANDVILLE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL | $7,500 |
| INNER CITY CHRISTIAN FEDERATION | $7,500 |
| DAFFODIL MINISTRIES | $6,500 |
| PINE REST CHRISTIAN MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES | $6,500 |
| INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION | $6,500 |
| COMMUNITY CRC | $6,500 |
| REHOBOTH CHRISTIAN SCHOOL | $6,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $85k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
88 repeat relationships — 66 still active in FY2025, 22 since wound down; 2 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, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5k 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
- CHChildren's HopeChest6× · 2017–2025 · $126k · revenue +4%
- WCWEDGWOOD CHRISTIAN SERVICES9× · 2017–2025 · $54k · revenue +52%
- ICICCF COMMUNITY HOMES9× · 2017–2025 · $49k · revenue +21%
Funded once
- GPGOSPEL PARTNER MEDIA WRETCHED RADIOone grant, 2020 · $3k
- SCSOUTH CHRISTIAN HIGH SCHOOLgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $3k · revenue +57%
- CDCORAM DEOone grant, 2023 · $2k
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.
Evangel is a comprehensive christian university that is committed to excellence in educating and equipping students to become spirit empowered servants of god who will impact the church and society globally.
To glorify god, show christian love, and experience god's presence as christians share each other's medical bills.
Christianity Today is a global community inspired by evangelical conviction to advance the stories and ideas of the kingdom of God. Our mission is to elevate the storytellers and sages of the global church.
Regent University serves as a center of Christian thought and action to provide excellent education through a Biblical perspective and global context equipping Christian leaders to change the world.
Christian Mission for the United Nations Community is a ministry aimed at leading the head of every nation and other top leaders to faith in Jesus Christ and helping them to walk in dependence upon God as they discharge the…
To proclaim the gospel, grow the messianic jewish community and engage the church concerning israel and the jewish people. this is done through education, evangelism and being a movement leader, all with excellence in order to transform…
As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.
Global scholars exists so that christian academics are adequately equipped to have a redemptive influence among their students, colleagues, universities and disciplines, at a reasonable cost.
Provide education in theology, divinity, religious education, ministerial training, business and organizational leadership.
Providing guality Christian education to the network generation
To get the good news to every nation this generation by showing and sharing god's love by providing opportunities and supporting christian missionaries in over fifty seven countries around the world.
Welch college is a christian higher education institution that educates leaders to serve christ, his church, and his world through biblical thought and life
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is David's House Ministries and the most unlike its peers is Aerial Recovery. 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 45 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
50 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. 50 of the 112 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 Children's HopeChest ↗
- Who funds WEDGWOOD CHRISTIAN SERVICES ↗
- Who funds ICCF COMMUNITY HOMES ↗
- Who funds Daffodil Ministries ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS WORLDWIDE ↗
- Who funds FEEDING AMERICA WEST MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds GRAND RAPIDS CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds Rehoboth Christian School Assoc ↗
- Who funds CALVIN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION ↗
- Who funds CALVIN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds GUIDING LIGHT MISSION INC ↗
- Who funds PINE REST CHRISTIAN MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES ↗
- Who funds ALL BELONG ↗
- Who funds UPPER PENINSULA BIBLE CAMP ↗
- Who funds Pregnancy Resource Center ↗
- Who funds MEL TROTTER MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds BSF INTERNATIONAL LLC ↗
- Who funds The Potters House ↗
- Who funds SAFE HAVEN MINISTRIES INC ↗
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: Barnabas Foundation · Grand Rapids Community Foundation · Douglas & Maria Devos Foundation · Peter C & Emajean Cook Foundation · Dick and Betsy Devos Family Foundation · Christian Community Foundation Inc · Edgar and Elsa Prince Foundation · The Richard and Helen Devos Foundation · Buist Foundation · Cdv5 Foundation · Weller Family Foundation · The David and Carol Van Andel Family 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 Marion & Marlene Betten 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.
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.