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· Public charity

Pure Oakland Water

Organization's mission or most significant activities.

$63k
Granted FY2025still arriving
4
Grants FY2025still arriving
1
States reached
$18k
Largest
01What you fund
0196% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY20202025.

Education$184kEnvironment$54kAnimals$18kOther$0
02FY2025 · 4 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

The 4 grants below total $49,080 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $62,880 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $13,800 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k2 grants · $15k
  • $10k–50k2 grants · $34k
$16,080
Median grant
1
States reached
$177k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
OAKLAND UNIVERSITY$18,000
CRANBROOK INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE$16,080
CLINTON RIVER WATERSHED COUNCIL$9,000
LAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY$6,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 9% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%LAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY: $6k → 8%FRIENDS OF THE ROUGE: $12k → 21%LAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY: $6k → 8%FRIENDS OF THE ROUGE: $8k → 21%LAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY: $6k → 8%FRIENDS OF THE ROUGE: $5k → 21%LAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY: $6k → 8%LAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY: $6k → 8%CRANBROOK INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE: $16k → 8%ROYAL OAK TWP: $20k → 8%CRANBROOK INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE: $15k → 8%DETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: $6k → 8%CRANBROOK INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE: $14k → 8%DETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: $6k → 8%CRANBROOK INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE: $14k → 8%DETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: $6k → 8%CRANBROOK INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE: $9k → 8%OAKLAND UNIVERSITY: $19k → 8%OAKLAND UNIVERSITY: $18k → 8%OAKLAND UNIVERSITY: $16k → 8%OAKLAND UNIVERSITY: $15k → 8%CLINTON RIVER WATERSHED COUNCIL: $11k → 8%CLINTON RIVER WATERSHED COUNCIL: $10k → 8%CLINTON RIVER WATERSHED COUNCIL: $9k → 8%OAKLAND UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIP: $6k → 8%OAKLAND UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIP: $6k → 8%OAKLAND UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIP: $6k → 8%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

93%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$256k · 6 repeat orgs$20k to everyone else

6 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

6
1

Total granted

$256k
$20k

Still filing today

83%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’20’21’22’23’24’25
EducationEnvironmentAnimalsOther

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

  • CRANBROOK EDUCATIONAL COMMUNITY
    4× · 2022–2025 · $68k · revenue +17%
  • LT
    LAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY
    5× · 2020–2025 · $30k · revenue +29%
  • CR
    CLINTON RIVER WATERSHED COUNCIL
    3× · 2023–2025 · $29k · revenue +29%

Funded once

  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    one grant, 2022 · $20k

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field
04the grantee network

5 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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 5 of the 7 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
5/5
Grantees still filing
5/5
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

OAKLAND UNIVERSITY — $86,000 · OtherOAKLAND UNIVERSITYIndividual grant recipient — $20,318 · OtherIndividual grant recipientCRANBROOK EDUCATIONAL COMMUNITY — $67,854 · EducationCRANBROOK EDUCATIONAL COMMUNITYLAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY — $30,000 · EducationLAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITYCLINTON RIVER WATERSHED COUNCIL — $29,492 · EnvironmentCLINTON RIVER WATERSHE…FRIENDS OF THE ROUGE — $25,000 · EnvironmentFRIENDS OF THE ROUGEDETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY — $18,000 · Animals
Other$106,318Education$97,854Environment$54,492Animals$18,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetCRANBROOK EDUCATIONAL COMMUNITY — $67,854 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetLAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY — $30,000 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetCLINTON RIVER WATERSHED COUNCIL — $29,492 over 3y, 1.4% of budgetFRIENDS OF THE ROUGE — $25,000 over 3y, 0.5% of budgetDETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY — $18,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budget
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 CRANBROOK EDUCATIONAL COMMUNITY
  • Who funds LAWRENCE TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY
  • Who funds CLINTON RIVER WATERSHED COUNCIL
  • Who funds FRIENDS OF THE ROUGE
  • Who funds DETROIT ZOOLOGICAL 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.

The Fred a & Barbara M Erb FamilyMI14.1× affinity4 shared granteesties to 2 of 2Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Fred a & Barbara M Erb Family · Community Foundation for Southeast · Amazonsmile 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 Pure Oakland Water 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.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%your share of their income ↑0%3%5%8%10%share of the org’s income from government
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–10%
    typical government reliance, FY2025

    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.

    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Pure Oakland Water?

    Find your warmest path to Pure Oakland Water 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 7 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

    Generated from your IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    More from the funding graph