· Private foundation
Phil & Pat Willis Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 50% of PHIL & PAT WILLIS 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 $10k4 grants · $22k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $85k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MICHIGAN THEATRE OF JACKSON | $50,000 |
| JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF MICHIGAN | $35,000 |
| GRASS LAKE SENIOR CENTER | $20,000 |
| JACKSON INTERFAITH SHELTER | $20,000 |
| ELLA SHARP MUSEUM | $10,000 |
| COLLEGE AND CAREER ACCESS CENTER | $7,000 |
| SOAR CAFE FARMS | $5,000 |
| WASHTENAW AREA VALUE EXPRESS | $5,000 |
| FAMILY SERVICE CHILDREN'S AID | $5,000 |
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 (FY18–25, $50k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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 +71% since the first grant, against +25% for the ones you funded once.
16 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 11 since wound down; 4 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, 59% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $65k 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
- JIJackson Interfaith Shelter5× · 2020–2025 · $80k · revenue +475%
- TMTHE MICHIGAN THEATRE OF JACKSON INC2× · 2020–2025 · $55k · revenue +453%
- LRLOST RAILWAY MUSEUM2× · 2018–2019 · $38k · revenue +3%
Funded once
- MTMICHIGAN THEATREone grant, 2024 · $25k
- TJTHE JACKSON FRIENDLY HOMEgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $15k · revenue +37%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2023 · $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.
The mission of jackson community ambulance is to provide high-quality out-of-hospital care and transportation services to the communities we serve.
To be a leading driver and advocate for community and economic development in jackson county.
Assist in the development of projects in cooperation with the local government and civic bodies that secure additional employment opportunities and facilities in jackson county indiana.
To empower the community through gardens, fresh food access, and eduction. instead of just growing food and giving it away, we also are teaching young people how to grow food, teaching them why fresh food is important for them and their…
To provide the best possible electric service to all who desire it within the system area at a reasonable cost consistent with the highest standards of service.
To provide high quality, comprehensive child development and after school care to ensure that children can reach their highest potential
To be a multifaceted housing organization devoted to catalyzing intentional on and off site collaborative partnerships that reduces homelessness and creates sustainable communities through affordable quality housing continued education job…
Jackson county united way assesses needs, secures resources and strategically invests those resources to create lasting, measurable change in the areas of education, health and financial stability for all people in jackson county.
United way of jackson county (uwjc) is dedicated to creating a community rich in opportunities to eliminate poverty and allow all people to achieve financial stability and success. this emphasis on financial stability includes meeting…
Improving the economic development opportunities of jackson county, mississippi by unifying planning, economic & industrial development, and marketing activities in the county.
To preserve and operate historic sites for public tours and research. to preserve historic documents for public inspection.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Junior Achievement of the Michigan Great Lakes Inc and the most unlike its peers is Fossores. 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 32 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 71 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 Jackson Interfaith Shelter ↗
- Who funds THE MICHIGAN THEATRE OF JACKSON INC ↗
- Who funds LOST RAILWAY MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF THE MICHIGAN GREAT LAKES INC ↗
- Who funds ELLA SHARP MUSEUM ASSOCIATION OF JACKSON ↗
- Who funds GRASS LAKE SENIOR CENTER ↗
- Who funds Jackson Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds JACKSON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE JACKSON FRIENDLY HOME ↗
- Who funds RISE ABOVE ↗
- Who funds TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE ↗
- Who funds COLLEGE AND CAREER ACCESS CENTER OF JACKSON ↗
- Who funds CASCADES HUMANE SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds JACKSON MAKERSPACE ↗
- Who funds THE ENTERPRISE GROUP OF JACKSON INC ↗
- Who funds WATERLOO AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
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 · Lavery Foundation · Consumers Energy Foundation · Jackson Community Foundation · The Hurst Foundation · John George Jr Paragraph X Trust · Addison P Cook III Foundation · The L H Field Family Foundation · Macchia Family Foundation · Speckhard-Knight Charitable Foundation · Flagstar Foundation Inc · Samuel Higby Camp 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 Phil & Pat Willis 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.