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· Public charity

Metropolitan Energy Center Inc

Metropolitan Energy Center's mission to empower the heartland to achieve sustainable energy use and cleaner air by providing resources, outreach and training available to all who aspire to make energy efficiency and alternative fuels commonplace.

$1.5M
Granted FY2024still arriving
11
Grants FY2024still arriving
5
States reached
$446k
Largest
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2019 to 2024.

Environment$7.3MScience & Tech$66kHealth$42kReligion$20k
02FY2024 · 11 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

  • $10k–50k4 grants · $95k
  • $50k–250k5 grants · $525k
  • $250k+2 grants · $882k
$94,999
Median grant
5
States reached
$1.5M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Lazer Spot Inc$446,093
UPS$435,636
Grain Valley R-5 School District$143,984
Water One$103,838
Evergy Metro$102,241
Tucker Equipment Inc$94,999
Sun Solar$79,773
Johnson County Community College$32,443
Hathmore Technologies LLC$31,606
Jerusalem Farm$20,275
The Pennsylvania State University$10,442
02The need
03

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:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY19–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 91% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 7%The Pennsylvania State University: $201k → 16%LilyPadEV: $209k → 9%Hirschbach Motor Lines: $712k → 11%Johnson County Community College: $32k → 5%City of El Dorado KS: $42k → 8%City of Garden City Kansas: $37k → 12%The University of Kansas Center for Research Inc: $10k → 15%Orange EV: $29k → 8%Evergy Metro: $102k → 15%Missouri University of Science and Technology: $56k → 16%Sun Solar: $80k → 19%UPS: $1.2M → 13%energetics: $27k → 6%The Pennsylvania State University: $10k → 16%LilyPadEV: $20k → 9%Water One: $104k → 5%City of Garden City KS: $24k → 12%Kansas City Aviation Department: $213k → 8%Grain Valley R-5 School District: $144k → 15%Missouri University of Science and Technology: $21k → 16%Sun Solar: $59k → 19%UPS: $436k → 13%WaterOne: $28k → 5%Grain Valley R-5 School District: $5k → 15%UPS: $411k → 13%City of Olathe Kansas: $198k → 5%Hathmore Technologies LLC: $32k → 15%Johnson County Kansas: $110k → 5%Hathmore Technologies LLC: $13k → 15%City of Olathe Kansas: $6k → 5%Hathmore Technologies LLC: $11k → 15%City of Kansas City MO: $298k → 15%City of Kansas City Missouri: $209k → 15%City of Kansas City Missouri: $209k → 15%City of Kansas City MO Aviation Department: $98k → 15%City of Kansas City Missouri: $83k → 15%The Children's Mercy Hospital: $42k → 15%Jerusalem Farm: $20k → 15%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 grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

87%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$6.5M · 14 repeat orgs$953k to everyone else

14 repeat relationships: 8 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

14
7

Total granted

$6.5M
$799k

Still filing today

0%
29%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $155k went to new ones.

50%100%’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’19’20’21’22’23’24
Science & TechHealthReligionOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • UP
    UNITED PARCEL SERVICE
    3× · 2022–2024 · $2.1M
  • HM
    Hirschbach Motor Lines
    2× · 2023–2024 · $1.4M
  • CO
    CITY OF KANSAS CITY MISSOURI
    4× · 2019–2022 · $1.1M

Funded once

  • DB
    DS Bus Lines
    one grant, 2022 · $540k
  • JC
    JOHNSON COUNTY KANSAS
    one grant, 2020 · $110k
  • CO
    City of El Dorado KS
    one grant, 2019 · $42k
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field
04the grantee network

3 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. 3 of the 24 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

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

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
3/3
Grantees still filing
2/3
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

UNITED PARCEL SERVICE: $2,075,675 · OtherUNITED PARCEL SERVICEHirschbach Motor Lines: $1,428,697 · OtherHirschbach Motor LinesCITY OF KANSAS CITY MISSOURI: $1,108,664 · OtherCITY OF KANSAS CITY MISSOURIDS Bus Lines: $540,000 · OtherDS Bus LinesTriplett: $420,209 · OtherTriplett+16 more: $1,806,343 · Other+16 moreThe Children's Mercy Hospital: $41,735 · HealthJerusalem Farm: $20,275 · ReligionUniversity of Kansas Center for Research Inc: $9,584 · Science & Tech
Other$7,379,588Health$41,735Religion$20,275Science & Tech$9,584

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

25%50%75%100%$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetThe Children's Mercy Hospital: $41,735 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetJerusalem Farm: $20,275 over 1y, 2.0% of budgetUniversity of Kansas Center for Research Inc: $9,584 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.

  • Who funds The Children's Mercy Hospital ↗
  • Who funds Jerusalem Farm ↗
  • Who funds University of Kansas Center for Research Inc ↗

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.

Greater Kansas City Community FoundationMO12.2× affinity4 shared granteesties to 0 of 0Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Greater Kansas City Community Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Metropolitan Energy Center Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Metropolitan Energy Center Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

2025
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%19%38%56%75%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%
    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.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Metropolitan Energy Center Inc?

    Find your warmest path to Metropolitan Energy Center Inc 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.

    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 24 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 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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