· Private foundation
Patrick & Marysue Michels Family 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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 88% of PATRICK & MARYSUE MICHELS FAMILY FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k6 grants · $22k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $131k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $200k
- $250k+1 grant · $400k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SAINT FRANCIS DE SALES SEMINARY | $400,000 |
| HOLY FAMILY CATHOLIC COMMUNITY | $100,000 |
| AGNESIAN HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION INC | $50,000 |
| BADGERLAND YOUTH FOR CHRIST | $50,000 |
| SHEPARD OF THE HILLS | $36,000 |
| LOVE ONE ANOTHER CAMPAIGN | $30,000 |
| THE ARC FOND DU LAC | $25,000 |
| UNLIMITED PLAY INC | $10,000 |
| CATHOLIC COMMUNITY SCHOOLS MN | $10,000 |
| ST KATHERINE DREXEL SHELTER | $10,000 |
| CHARIS PREGNANCY & FAMILY HELP CENTER | $10,000 |
| ST FRANCIS XAVIER | $5,000 |
| FOND DU LAC AREA FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| OSHKOSH AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| FOND DU LAC SYMPHONIC BAND | $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.
Your human-services grants (FY21–25, $26k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 62% 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 +15% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
21 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2025, 12 since wound down; 6 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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $64k 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
- BYBADGERLAND YOUTH FOR CHRIST INC6× · 2020–2025 · $280k · revenue +15%
- TATHE ARC FOND DU LAC INC4× · 2021–2025 · $120k · revenue +2%
- CPCHARIS PREGNANCY & FAMILY HELP CENTER INC3× · 2023–2025 · $30k · revenue +37%
Funded once
- SMST MARY CATHOLIC CHURCHone grant, 2020 · $50k
- LOLOVE ONE ANOTHER TRUSTone grant, 2023 · $30k
- SMST MARY PARISHone grant, 2024 · $10k
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 unite individuals and organizations in a collaborative cost-effective effort to meet the human service needs of the community
The mission of envision greater fond du lac foundation, inc. is to inspire our community to work in partnership and cultivate a vibrant economic future.
Lake Michigan is one of Wisconsin's greatest assets, and its water is critical to the state's future. The Fund for Lake Michigan is here to help sustain the Lake on behalf of the people and places that depend on it. Our goal is to have a…
The mission of envision greater fond du lac, inc. is to inspire our community to work in partnership and cultivate a vibrant economic future.
Support Christian activities of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Madison, WI and administer dedicated funds such as scholarship bequests.
At Catholic Charities, we focus our efforts around three core pillars: Food Access, Mental Health and Housing. Guided by our mission - to serve and enhance human dignity for all people - we provide essential services and foster a sense of…
Direct, promote, and support festivals and special events that showcase fond du lac and the surrounding communities, and also provide assistance to other area charitable organizations.
Wccf is a pool of permanent endowment and project funds created primarily by and for the people of waukesha county to provide grant support to charitable organizations. the intent of the foundation is to serve a broad spectrum of the…
To receive and administer charitable endowment funds, to award grants to social, educational, scientific, religious and other charitable organizations in door county, wisconsin.
To help every member be in a better financial position than when we met them.
Wisconsin foundation united church of christ, inc. is a catalyst for positive change in the life of the united church of christ in wisconsin; promotes a culture of generosity; and connects people across the ucc in working for a more just…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Catholic Charities Inc Diocese of Madison and the most unlike its peers is Green Lake Association 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 49 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 17% startups (under 5 years old) — 7% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 8% 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.
21 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. 21 of the 46 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 BADGERLAND YOUTH FOR CHRIST INC ↗
- Who funds FOND DU LAC AREA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE ARC FOND DU LAC INC ↗
- Who funds AGNESIAN HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CHARIS PREGNANCY & FAMILY HELP CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds FOND DU LAC SYMPHONIC BAND LTD ↗
- Who funds GREEN LAKE ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds Manitoqua Ministries Inc ↗
- Who funds UNLIMITED PLAY INC ↗
- Who funds FONDY FOOD PANTRY ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC COMMUNITY SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds SOLUTIONS CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds COPS FOR KIDS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds STACY FUSON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OSHKOSH AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC CHARITIES INC DIOCESE OF MADISON ↗
- Who funds PAVEK MUSEUM ↗
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: Kevin and Connie Michels Family Foundation · Michels Family Foundation · Mike Shannon Automotive Foundation Inc · Green Bay Packers Foundation · Grande Foundation · Fond Du Lac Area Foundation · Mid-States Aluminum Foundation Inc · Alliant Energy Foundation Inc · Jf Ahern Co Foundation · Francis R & Ruth E Oberreich Foundation Corporation · Nesheim Family Foundation Inc · Sadoff Family 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 Patrick & Marysue Michels Family 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 Patrick & Marysue Michels Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Patrick & Marysue Michels Family 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.