· Private foundation
Mary I McLeod 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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k23 grants · $99k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $92k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GROSSE POINTE MEMORIAL CHURCH | $18,000 |
| THE HELM MEALS ON WHEELS | $18,000 |
| CHILDREN'S MOVEMENT OF FLORIDA | $13,500 |
| GROSSE POINTE THEATER | $12,500 |
| SHAW FESTIVAL FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT MERCY | $10,000 |
| MERCY HIGH SCHOOL | $10,000 |
| WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY | $9,500 |
| SAY DETROIT | $8,000 |
| GROSSE POINTE SOUTH HIGH SCHOOL | $8,000 |
| GROSSE POINTE LIBRARY FOUNDATION | $6,250 |
| MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY | $6,000 |
| REGINA HIGH SCHOOL | $6,000 |
| CAPUCHIN SOUP KITCHEN | $6,000 |
| NEIGHBORHOOD CLUB | $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 (FY21–25, $34k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 47% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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 +32% since the first grant, against +14% for the ones you funded once.
37 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2025, 16 since wound down; 6 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, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $30k 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
- GPGROSSE POINTE THEATRE INC6× · 2020–2025 · $66k · revenue +64%
- GPGROSSE POINTE ANIMAL ADOPTION SOCIETY6× · 2020–2025 · $41k · revenue +384%
UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT MERCY3× · 2023–2025 · $27k · revenue +9%
Funded once
- SFSERVICES FOR OLDER CITIZENS INC DBA THE HELM AT THE BOLL LIFE CENTERgraduatedone grant, 2024 · $14k · revenue +33%
- THTHE HELMone grant, 2020 · $3k
- WMWESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITYone grant, 2022 · $3k
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.
World animal protection is a global organization working to end factory farming and wildlife exploitation. we expose cruel systems, promote animal-friendly alternatives, and influence policy change. for over 75 years, we've been rewriting…
Founded in 1877, american humane association, dba american humane society (american humane) is committed to ensuring the safety, welfare and well-being of animals. our leadership programs are first to serve in promoting and nurturing the…
Inspiring communities to save wildlife for future generations.
The wildlife conservation society (wcs) saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature.
The wildlife society's mission is to inspire, empower, and enable wildlife professionals to sustain wildlife populations and habitats through science-based management and conservation.
To prevent cruelty to animals, we promote enacting and enforcing good public policies. enacting good laws depends upon electing good lawmakers, and we remind voters which candidates care about and support animal issues.
Lincoln park zoo is dedicated to connecting people with nature by providing a free, family-oriented wildlife experience in the heart of chicago and by advancing the highest quality of animal care, horticulture, education, science and…
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
We work towards a future where birds thrive across the americas because audubon is a powerful, diverse, and ever-growing force for conservation. (continued on schedule o).
The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
The mission of lowell observatory is to pursue the study of astronomy, especially the study of our solar system and its evolution; to conduct pure research in astronomical phenomena; and to maintain quality public education and outreach…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan and the most unlike its peers is Grosse Pointe Historical Society. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 67 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 — 0.0% 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.
39 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. 39 of the 69 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 GROSSE POINTE THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds GROSSE POINTE ANIMAL ADOPTION SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT MERCY ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds EARLY CHILDHOOD INITIATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds LEADER DOGS FOR THE BLIND ↗
- Who funds NEIGHBORHOOD CLUB ↗
- Who funds SAY DETROIT ↗
- Who funds SERVICES FOR OLDER CITIZENS INC DBA THE HELM AT THE BOLL LIFE CENTER ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds GROSSE POINTE LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS ↗
- Who funds GROSSE POINTE HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds DETROIT ATHLETIC CLUB FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GUARDIAN ANGELS MEDICAL SERVICE DOGS INC ↗
- Who funds GROSSE POINTE ARTISTS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Humane World for Animals Inc ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL WILDLIFE FEDERATION ↗
- Who funds TED LINDSAY 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: Doris J & Donald L Duchene Foundation C/O David Findling · Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · S Gary Spicer Sr Foundation · Joanne Nicolay Foundation · William & Martha Ford Fund · Dolores and Paul Lavins Foundation · Alice Kales Hartwick Foundation · Richard and Jane Manoogian Foundation · Lynn & Paul Alandt Foundation · McGregor Fund · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc
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 Mary I McLeod 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.
- Shriners Hospitals for Children — 0% of income from government
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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Mary I McLeod Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Mary I McLeod Foundation 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.