· Private foundation
Miller Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k64 grants · $67k
- $10k–50k17 grants · $336k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $185k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LEGAL SERVICES OF SOUTH CENTRAL MICHIGAN | $70,000 |
| CHARITABLE UNION | $65,000 |
| BC HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | $50,000 |
| SAFE PLACE | $35,000 |
| MUSIC CENTER OF SC MI | $26,352 |
| WHAT A DO THEATRE | $25,000 |
| THE BARN THEATRE SCHOOL FOR ADVANCED TT | $25,000 |
| SPROUT URBAN FARMS INC | $25,000 |
| NEIGHBORHOODS INC | $25,000 |
| NONPROFIT NETWORK | $22,592 |
| BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS | $20,000 |
| BRONSON HEALTH FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $19,600 |
| HARPER CREEK PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $16,339 |
| LOCAL INITIATIVE SUPPORT CORPORATION | $16,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $875k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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.
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 +42% since the first grant, against +3% for the ones you funded once.
93 repeat relationships — 46 still active in FY2024, 47 since wound down; 7 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, 83% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $97k 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
- CUCHARITABLE UNION8× · 2017–2024 · $446k · revenue +16%
MUSIC CENTER OF SOUTH CENTRAL MI8× · 2017–2024 · $380k · revenue +68%- MAMichigan Advocacy Program5× · 2018–2024 · $350k · revenue +125%
Funded once
NORTHERN GREAT LAKES INITIATIVESone grant, 2018 · $100k · revenue -19%- CCCALHOUN COUNTY HEALTH DEPTone grant, 2020 · $50k
- MCMUSIC CENTER OF SCMIone grant, 2020 · $44k
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 provide comprehensive outpatient mental health services to over 5400 individuals and their families in a consumer driven person centered delivery system. Approximately 15% of our staff members are our clients who are involved in a…
Our mission is conserving West Michigans ecologically critical land. We protect land by creating public nature preserves, providing support to communities and local governments in creating natural areas, and helping private landowners…
Mid michigan community action guides local residents on the path to self-sufficiency through empowerment, education and community enrichment.
The mission of great lakes community action partnership is to create partnerships and opportunites to help individuals, families and communities thrive.
Arbor research collaborative for health is committed to improving patient care through research that shapes medical policies and practice. in particular, arbor research conducts health outcomes research on chronic disease and end-stage…
The Center's mission is to inspire, entertain, educate, and serve all in Northern Michigan year-round by presenting exceptional experiences across the full spectrum of the performing arts and offering impactful educational opportunities.
Our mission is to embrace a diverse student body and student success through an innovative an innovative curriculum, the cultivation of environmental stewardship, and accountability.
To conserve the land, water and scenic character of leelanau county, and to provide educational programs to develop an understanding and appreciation of leelanau county's natural heritage.
None
Provide affordable or free mediation services and conflict resolution trainings to support the transforming of our society into a collaborative and problem-solving one.
It is our mission to provide a child-centered environment, treating each child and family with respect.
To maintain and operate a hospital, ambulance and veterinary services for the care of animals. the maintenance and operation of kennels and suitable chambers for the humane destruction of wounded animals.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Battle Creek Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Generation E Institute. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 42 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
55 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. 55 of the 166 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 CHARITABLE UNION ↗
- Who funds MUSIC CENTER OF SOUTH CENTRAL MI ↗
- Who funds Michigan Advocacy Program ↗
- Who funds NEW LEVEL SPORTS ↗
- Who funds SPROUT URBAN FARMS INC ↗
- Who funds THE ROBERT B MILLER COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds SAFE PLACE ↗
- Who funds LEILA ARBORETUM SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds VOCES ↗
- Who funds NONPROFIT NETWORK ↗
- Who funds WHAT A DO THEATRE ↗
- Who funds Bronson Health Foundation ↗
- Who funds NORTHERN GREAT LAKES INITIATIVES ↗
- Who funds BURMESE AMERICAN INITIATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds SPECIALIZED LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds OLIVET COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds SUBSTANCE ABUSE COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds KINGMAN MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds DROP-IN SELF HELP CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Binder Park Zoological Society Inc ↗
- Who funds LOCAL INITIATIVES SUPPORT CORPORATION ↗
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: Battle Creek Community Foundation · WK Kellogg Foundation · United Way of South Central Michigan · Kalamazoo Community Foundation · Guido a Binda and Elizabeth H Binda Foundation · Feldpausch Foundation · Consumers Energy Foundation · Santo Maria Frank & John Zanetti Foundation · Suzanne Upjohn Delano Parish Foundation · Tyler-Little Family Foundation · Harold and Grace Upjohn Foundation · Battle Creek Unlimited 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 Miller 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 Miller Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Miller 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.