· Private foundation
Melling Family 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 $10k6 grants · $30k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $60k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SHOP RAT FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| COMPASSIONATE MINISTRIES OF JACKSON COUNTY | $15,000 |
| JACKSON Y-CENTER INC (YMCA) | $10,000 |
| SAINT MARTHA PARISH & SCHOOL | $10,000 |
| JACKSON FRIENDLY HOME | $7,500 |
| JOHN GEORGE HOME | $7,500 |
| FERRIS STATE UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
| MICHIGAN THEATRE OF JACKSON INC | $5,000 |
| LUMEN CHRISTI CATHOLIC SCHOOL | $2,500 |
| LANSING CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL | $2,500 |
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, $93k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 14%. 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.
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.
24 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- CMCOMPASSIONATE MINISTRIES OF JACKSON COUNTY8× · 2017–2025 · $59k · revenue +30%
- JGJOHN GEORGE HOME INC6× · 2017–2025 · $26k · revenue +89%
- REReece Endeavor of Midland5× · 2017–2021 · $15k · revenue +62%
Funded once
- TCTHE CATHOLIC FOUNDATION OF THE DIOCESE OF LANSINGone grant, 2018 · $10k
- JIJackson Interfaith Sheltergraduatedone grant, 2021 · $5k · revenue +368%
- JDJUVENILE DIABETES RESEARCH FOUNDATION SE MICHIGAN CHAPTERone grant, 2020 · $5k
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.
The mission of jackson community ambulance is to provide high-quality out-of-hospital care and transportation services to the communities we serve.
To be a multifaceted housing organization devoted to catalyzing intentional on and off site collaborative partnerships that reduces homelessness and creates sustainable communities through affordable quality housing continued education job…
To be a leading driver and advocate for community and economic development in jackson county.
Our mission remains to offer hope to adults by providing an effective continuum of high quality, valuable, and compassionate behavioral health treatment services.
Our vision is to seek the wholistic wellbeing of the Jackson neighborhood, where residents are known, valued, and empowered to collaborate for the thriving of its people and place.
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…
Assist in the development of projects in cooperation with the local government and civic bodies that secure additional employment opportunities and facilities in jackson county indiana.
Enhance delivery of quality, integrated, accessible services
To assist people with low or moderate income to obtain safe and affordable housing
The organization is organized exclusively for the purpose of expanding and strengthening efforts to address the housing, shelter and service needs of lowincome residents of johnson county, iowa.
Jackson county united way assesses needs, secures resources and strategically invests those resources to create lasting, measurable change in the areas of education, health and financial stability for all people in jackson county.
To provide high quality, comprehensive child development and after school care to ensure that children can reach their highest potential
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Disability Connections Inc and the most unlike its peers is Reece Endeavor of Midland. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
17 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. 17 of the 33 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 COMPASSIONATE MINISTRIES OF JACKSON COUNTY ↗
- Who funds THE SHOP RAT FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE JACKSON FRIENDLY HOME ↗
- Who funds JOHN GEORGE HOME INC ↗
- Who funds ELLA SHARP MUSEUM ASSOCIATION OF JACKSON ↗
- Who funds Reece Endeavor of Midland ↗
- Who funds LIONS OF MICHIGAN SERVICE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE MICHIGAN THEATRE OF JACKSON INC ↗
- Who funds HOLY CROSS SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds Family Service and Childrens Aid ↗
- Who funds JACKSON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds DISABILITY CONNECTIONS INC ↗
- Who funds Jackson Interfaith Shelter ↗
- Who funds OTSEGO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Greater Jackson Habitat for Humanity ↗
- Who funds LILY MISSIONS CENTER ↗
- Who funds ALLEGIANCE HEALTH 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: The Alvin L Glick Foundation · Consumers Energy Foundation · Jackson Community Foundation · John George Jr Paragraph X Trust · Lavery Foundation · Phil & Pat Willis Foundation · The Hurst Foundation · Speckhard-Knight Charitable Foundation · Macchia Family Foundation · Addison P Cook III Foundation · Weatherwax Foundation · Flagstar Foundation 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 Melling Family 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Melling Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Melling Family 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.