· Private foundation
Myer & Lois Franklin Charitable Tr
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k29 grants · $78k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $136k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $107k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY | $56,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN | $51,000 |
| GRAND VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY | $38,500 |
| JACKSON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| SPRING ARBOR UNIVERSITY | $17,000 |
| WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITSY | $16,000 |
| JACKSON COLLEGE | $15,500 |
| CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY | $12,500 |
| SAGINAW VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY | $11,000 |
| MICHIAN TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY | $9,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $4,500 |
| INDIANA WESLEY UNIVERSITY | $4,000 |
| CALVIN UNIVERSITY | $4,000 |
| KALAMAZOO COLLEGE | $4,000 |
| NORTHERN MICHIGN UNIVERSITY | $4,000 |
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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 86% 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.
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +25% since the first grant, against +7% for the ones you funded once.
58 repeat relationships — 26 still active in FY2025, 32 since wound down; 8 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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15k 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 Michigan8× · 2017–2025 · $345k · revenue +202%
- SASpring Arbor University9× · 2017–2025 · $117k · revenue +4%
- ACALMA COLLEGE7× · 2017–2025 · $25k · revenue +7%
Funded once
- SSCHOLone grant, 2020 · $46k
- MIMASSACHUSETTS INSSTITUTE OF TECHone grant, 2021 · $5k
- JSJackson School of the Arts Assocgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $3k · revenue +53%
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 university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
Xavier is a jesuit catholic university rooted in the liberal arts tradition. our mission is to educate each student intellectually, morally, and spiritually. we create learning opportunities through rigorous academic and professional…
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…
As a jesuit catholic university committed to academic rigor, inclusive excellence, and care for the whole person, john carroll university inspires individuals of intellect and character to learn, lead and serve in the community and…
Trinity university is an independent co-educational university whose mission is excellence in the interrelated areas of teaching, research and services.
Inspired by lutheran scholarly tradition and the liberal arts, augustana provides an education of enduring worth that challenges the intellect, fosters integrity and integrates faith with learning and service in a diverse world.
Capital university transforms lives by empowering an inclusive community of learners through engaging academic, co-curricular, and professional experiences.
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…
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…
As a diverse community of learners, we cultivate integrity, curiosity, connection and resilience.
Otterbein University is an inclusive community dedicated to educating the whole person in the context of humane values. Our mission is to prepare graduates to think deeply and broadly, to engage locally and globally, and to advance their…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wheaton College and the most unlike its peers is Cascades Humane Society 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 68 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
47 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. 47 of the 101 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 Jackson Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds Spring Arbor University ↗
- Who funds ALBION COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds ALMA COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds University of Notre Dame du Lac ↗
- Who funds ADRIAN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Cedarville University ↗
- Who funds Kettering University ↗
- Who funds JACKSON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds Aquinas College ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Massachusetts Institute of Technology ↗
- Who funds INDIANA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds SIENA HEIGHTS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Trine University ↗
- Who funds Savannah College of Art and DesignInc ↗
- Who funds CALVIN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Taylor University ↗
- Who funds Wheaton College ↗
- Who funds LAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds SETON HILL 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: The Alvin L Glick Foundation · The Gerber Foundation · Consumers Energy Foundation · Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · The VombergTrumley Foundation · Kanitz Louis J & Golda I Main Ac · Community Foundation for Muskegon County · Charles Stewart Mott Foundation · Lorna a Welch Charitable Foundation Xxx-Xx-Xxxx · Michigan Colleges Alliance · Lavere & Gladys Chase Scholarship Fd · The Community Foundation of the Holland/Zeeland Area 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 Myer & Lois Franklin Charitable Tr 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.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology — 26% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 5% of income from government
- Saint Michael's 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Myer & Lois Franklin Charitable Tr?
Find your warmest path to Myer & Lois Franklin Charitable Tr 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.