· Community foundation
Michigan Gateway Community Foundation
MICHIGAN GATEWAY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION is a tax-exempt, nonprofit michigan corporation organized to receive and administer funds for scientific, educational, and charitable purposes to benefit the communites of south berrien and cass county, michigan.
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.
The 51 grants below total $860,058 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $1,053,509 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $193,451 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k22 grants · $154k
- $10k–50k27 grants · $576k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $130k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY | $77,125 |
| SOUTHWESTERN MICHIGAN COLLEGE | $53,159 |
| GRAND VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY | $49,250 |
| CITY OF BUCHANAN | $45,200 |
| FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF BUCHANAN | $44,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN | $36,500 |
| LYONS MCBRIDE LLC | $34,000 |
| YMCA OF GREATER MICHIANA | $29,954 |
| WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY | $26,409 |
| LAKE MICHIGAN COLLEGE | $25,546 |
| HELP FOR HOMES | $24,479 |
| REDBUD AREA MINISTRIES | $21,915 |
| THE SALVATION ARMY NILES | $20,000 |
| FERRIS STATE UNIVERSITY | $17,750 |
| BUCHANAN DISTRICT LIBRARY | $17,271 |
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, $206k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those 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.
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.
55 repeat relationships — 33 still active in FY2025, 22 since wound down; 16 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, 77% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $198k 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
- YMYOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF GREATER MICHIANA INC8× · 2017–2025 · $383k · revenue +177%
- FIFERNWOOD INC9× · 2017–2025 · $166k · revenue +56%
- CCCASS COUNTY COUNCIL ON AGING INC9× · 2017–2025 · $141k · revenue +50%
Funded once
- YOYMCA OF GREATER MICHIANAone grant, 2022 · $40k
- NCNILES CHARTER TOWNSHIPone grant, 2020 · $33k
- TPTHE POKAGON FUND INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $31k · revenue +30%
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.
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
Benedictine University is an inclusive academic community dedicated to teaching and learning, scholarship and service, truth and justice, as inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition, the social teaching of the Church, and the…
Education - lagrange college challenges the minds and inspires the souls of its students. founded in 1831 and committed to its relationship with the united methodist church and its wesleyan and liberal arts traditions, the college supports…
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
Provide post-secondary education leading to a baccalaureate degree. Program service expenditures are made in conjunction with the operation of a liberal arts college spread over 107 acres with approximately 63 educational and support…
Ashland university, guided by our christian heritage, is a comprehensive, private university that provides a transformative learning experience, shaping graduates who work, serve and lead with integrity in their local, national, and global…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Hilbert college is an independent institution of higher learning that embraces its catholic franciscan heritage and values. students from diverse backgrounds are educated in liberal arts and professional programs to become informed…
Illinois college is a co-educational institution of higher education learning providing a four-year educational program leading to the baccalaureate degree. illinois college is a community committed to the highest standards of scholarship…
Chartered in 1826, lafayette college is dedicated to excellence in undergraduate education. students are engaged in a transformative educational experience that bridges the liberal arts, engineering, and interdisciplinary study. the…
Columbia college improves lives by providing quality education to both traditional and nontraditional students, helping them achieve their true potential.
Saint xavier university, a catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the sisters of mercy, educates persons to search for truth, think critically, communicate effectively and serve wisely and compassionately in support of human…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Baker College Professional Services and the most unlike its peers is The Pokagon Fund Inc. 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 54 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
52 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. 52 of the 110 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 SOUTHWESTERN MICHIGAN COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF GREATER MICHIANA INC ↗
- Who funds LAKE MICHIGAN COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds FERNWOOD INC ↗
- Who funds CASS COUNTY COUNCIL ON AGING INC ↗
- Who funds WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY HOMER STRYKER MD SCHOOL OF MEDICINE ↗
- Who funds BUCHANAN ART CENTER ↗
- Who funds HOPE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Lakeland Hospitals at Niles and St Joseph Inc ↗
- Who funds BUCHANAN AREA SENIOR CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE POKAGON FUND INC ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN COLLEGE ACCESS NETWORK ↗
- Who funds COREWELL HEALTH - MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY ALLIANCE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Charity Navigator ↗
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: Berrien Community Foundation Inc · Wood Foundation Inc · The Allegan County Community Foundation · American Electric Power Foundation · Consumers Energy Foundation · Jp Crain Family Scholarship Pfdn Paulding County Area Foundation · The Huizenga Family Foundation · Degroot Family Foundation · Lakeland Health Foundation Benton Harbor/Stjoseph · Chemical Bank Foundation · 1st Source Bank Foundation Inc Xxx-Xx-Xxxx · Lilly Endowment 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 Michigan Gateway Community 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.
- The Trustees of Mount Holyoke College — 1% 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.