· Private foundation
Monroe-Brown 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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $130k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $428k
- $250k+6 grants · $2.8M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| VANGUARD CHARITABLE | $500,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF GREENVILLE | $500,000 |
| DAFGIVING360 | $500,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN | $500,000 |
| KALAMAZOO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $500,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN | $250,000 |
| UNITED WAY OF SOUTH CENTRAL MICHIGAN | $145,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN | $100,000 |
| WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION | $72,667 |
| Individual grant recipient | $60,000 |
| KALAMAZOO NONPROFIT ADVOCACY COALITION | $50,000 |
| BU FOUNDATION | $35,189 |
| KALAMAZOO COUNTY READY 4S | $25,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN | $25,000 |
| THE LEELANAU SCHOOL | $25,000 |
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 (FY20–25, $128k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 10% of Monroe-Brown Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +26% since the first grant, against -18% for the ones you funded once.
17 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2025, 11 since wound down; 5 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, 60% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $725k 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
- UOUniversity of Michigan5× · 2020–2025 · $4.9M · revenue +139%
- WMWESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION6× · 2020–2025 · $465k · revenue +135%
- KCKALAMAZOO COUNTY READY 4S5× · 2020–2025 · $128k · revenue +19%
Funded once
- WHWMU HOMER STRYKER MD SCHOOL OF MEDICINE - DONOR ADVISEDone grant, 2020 · $210k
- TCTHE CROSSING INCone grant, 2021 · $75k · revenue -33%
- ACARTS COUNCIL OF GREATER KALAMAZOOone grant, 2021 · $60k · revenue +17%
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 nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.
The common application is a not-for-profit membership organization of over 1,100 colleges and universities across the globe committed to access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. every year, over 1.5 million students…
To promote conditions favorable to job creation and business success in michigan.
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
Business leaders for michigan is a nonprofit, nonpartisan statewide organization driven by ceos from the state's leading employers, all working toward a shared goal: making michigan a top 10 state for jobs, talent and a thriving economy.…
Engages, equips and empowers learners to explore their vocations, fulfill their potential and serve the world.
Kansas wesleyan university is a liberal arts college that promotes and integrates academic excellence, spiritual development, personal well-being, and social responsibility.
The minnesota chamber of commerce proactively leads the business community statewide to: advance pro-business, responsible minnesota public policy that creates jobs and grows the econony; provde member services to address evolving business…
To provide financial services to members with a common bond.
Business leaders for michigan is a nonprofit, nonpartisan statewide organization driven by ceos from the state's leading employers, all working toward a shared goal: making michigan a top 10 state for jobs, talent and a thriving economy.…
To be a catalyst for economic and community progress within the great lakes bay region.
Luther classical college educates lutherans in the classical, lutheran tradition and prepares them for godly vocations within family, church, and society, fostering christian culture through study of the best of our western heritage.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Kalamazoo Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Specialized Language Development Center Inc. 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 51 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 9% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
19 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. 19 of the 41 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 University of Michigan ↗
- Who funds DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF GREENVILLE INC ↗
- Who funds WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO NONPROFIT ADVOCACY COALITION ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF SOUTH CENTRAL MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO COUNTY READY 4S ↗
- Who funds THE CROSSING INC ↗
- Who funds ARTS COUNCIL OF GREATER KALAMAZOO ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds The Leelanau School ↗
- Who funds SPECIALIZED LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN FIRST CORP ↗
- Who funds NOBLE NETWORK OF CHARTER SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds ASCENSION BORGESS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DAVENPORT UNIVERSITY ↗
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: Kalamazoo Community Foundation · Dorothy U Dalton Foundation Inc · Harold and Grace Upjohn Foundation · Irving S Gilmore Foundation · Marvin and Rosalie Okun Foundation · Suzanne Upjohn Delano Parish Foundation · Tyler-Little Family Foundation · The Burdick-Thorne Foundation · The Ronda E Stryker and William D Johnston Foundation · WK Kellogg Foundation · H P & Genevieve Connable Fund · Preston S and Barbara J Parish Foundation
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 Monroe-Brown 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.