· Public charity
Michigan Energy First
The Organizations program activities were primarily contributions to other non-profits with similar objectives and missions, political and advocacy activities, and research.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $103k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $350k
- $250k+5 grants · $2.4M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Building a Better Economy | $750,000 |
| Road to Michigan's Future | $550,000 |
| 21st Century Fund | $500,000 |
| Michigan Empowerment Fund | $300,000 |
| Great Lakes Works | $250,000 |
| Michigan Values | $150,000 |
| Protecting Detroit's Future | $100,000 |
| Michigan Chamber of Commerce | $50,000 |
| Put Progress First | $50,000 |
| Michigan Families Matter | $35,000 |
| Leadership at Work | $25,000 |
| Go Farther | $20,000 |
| The Heat and Warmth Fund | $12,500 |
| Vote Vets Action Fund | $10,000 |
| Clean Air Task Force | $5,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY20–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 99% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +8% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
14 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 5 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 77% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $640k 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
- RTRoad to Michigan's Future5× · 2020–2024 · $1.8M · revenue +20%
- BABuilding a Better Economy2× · 2022–2024 · $950k · revenue +2% · 50% of their budget
- MVMichigan Values3× · 2021–2024 · $750k · revenue +44% · 46% of their budget
Funded once
- BSBIPARTISAN SOLUTIONSone grant, 2020 · $3.3M
- MFMICHIGAN FOR ALLone grant, 2020 · $250k
- DFDetroiters for Changeone grant, 2020 · $250k
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.
To oppose a Michigan ballot measure
Michigan Rising Action is focused on holding special interest networks accountable and advancing conservative principles. We're fighting for limited government, lowering taxes, fighting government over-regulation that stifles freedom, free…
Social welfare and issue advocacy
To promote civic action and social welfare by promoting the common good and general welfare of the residents of and visitors to the State of Michigan; to support public policies on the federal, state, and local levels that will bring about…
Clean Jobs for Michigan is building a future we can all be proud of. Through advocating for clean water clean energy and good-paying clean jobs were working to build a Michigan that will sustain our natural resources and hardworking…
Voter education around policy
To operate exclusively for the promotion of civic action and social welfare by promoting the common good and general welfare of the residents of and visitors to the State of Michigan; to support public policies on the Federal State and…
To operate exclusively for the promotion of civic action and social welfare by promoting the common good and general welfare of the residents of, and visitors to the State of Michigan; To support public policies on the federal, state, and…
To promote the common good and general welfare of Michiganders through advocacy, research, and participation in public policy initiatives concerning the economy, health, safety, environment, civic engagement, and good governance.
To operate exclusively for the promotion of civic action and social welfare by promoting the common good and general welfare of Michigan residents and visitors; to promote and encourage citizen participation in political and civic events;…
To operate exclusively for the promotion of civic action and social welfare by promoting the common good and general welfare of the residents of, and visitors to the State of Michigan, including the City of Detroit; to support public…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Citizens for a Better Michigan and the most unlike its peers is Leadership At Work. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
32 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. 32 of the 43 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 BIPARTISAN SOLUTIONS ↗
- Who funds Road to Michigan's Future ↗
- Who funds OUR NEIGHBORHOODS FIRST ↗
- Who funds Building a Better Economy ↗
- Who funds Michigan Values ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ↗
- Who funds Preserve Michigans Future Fund ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN EMPOWERMENT FUND ↗
- Who funds GREAT LAKES JOBS ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds PROTECTING DETROITS FUTURE ↗
- Who funds Detroiters for Change ↗
- Who funds VOTERS FOR TRANSPARENCY AND TERM LIMITS ↗
- Who funds TRANSIT MATTERS TRANSIT MATTERS-MI ↗
- Who funds Promise to the People Fund ↗
- Who funds Protecting Michigans Future Fund ↗
- Who funds PUT PROGRESS FIRST ↗
- Who funds THE MICHIGAN ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds STATE GOVERNMENT LEADERSHIP FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN CITIZENS FOR FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY ↗
- Who funds CITIZENS FOR A BETTER MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds INDEPENDENT LIBERTY ↗
- Who funds SMALL BUSINESS FOR MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds JOBS FOR MICHIGAN COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds THE HEAT AND WARMTH FUND ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN FAMILIES MATTER ↗
- Who funds PENINSULA FUND ↗
- Who funds BULDING MICHIGANS FUTURE ↗
- Who funds Leadership At Work ↗
- Who funds VOTEVETS ACTION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds CLEAN AIR TASK FORCE 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: Citizens for Energizing Michigan's Economy · Michigan Health & Hospital Association Dba Mha · Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America · Coalition to Promote Public Entity Risk Pools · Michigan Beer & Wine Wholesalers Assn · Michigan Health Leadership Fund · Michigan Citizens for Better Health · Realtors Political Action Committee II · Michigan Values
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 Michigan Energy First 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 Michigan Energy First?
Find your warmest path to Michigan Energy First 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.