· Private foundation
Ralph L & Winifred E Polk Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k3 grants · $13k
- $10k–50k30 grants · $496k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $250k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY | $100,000 |
| GRAND TRAVERSE REGIONAL LAND CONSERVANCY | $50,000 |
| TRINITY HEALTH ST JOSEPH MERCY OAKLAND | $50,000 |
| THE NATURE CONSERVANCY | $50,000 |
| COLLEGE FOR CREATIVE STUDIES | $25,000 |
| CHERRYLAND HUMANE SOCIETY | $25,000 |
| CRANBROOK EDUCATIONAL COMMUNITY | $25,000 |
| MICHIGAN HUMANE SOCIETY | $25,000 |
| FORGOTTEN HARVEST | $20,000 |
| GLEANERS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK | $20,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $20,000 |
| BOLDLI EXCEPTIONAL YOUTH SERVICES | $20,000 |
| RACQUET UP DETROIT | $20,000 |
| GREENING OF DETROIT | $20,000 |
| INTERLOCHEN CENTER FOR THE ARTS | $20,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $370k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 23% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +23% since the first grant, against +16% for the ones you funded once.
54 repeat relationships — 33 still active in FY2024, 21 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $46k 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
- GTGRAND TRAVERSE REGIONAL LAND CONSERVANCY5× · 2020–2024 · $425k · revenue +230%
- DZDETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY5× · 2020–2024 · $245k · revenue +106%
FORGOTTEN HARVEST INC5× · 2020–2024 · $180k · revenue +2%
Funded once
- COCOMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY CENTERone grant, 2022 · $15k
- BBBIG BROTHERS AND BIG SISTERSone grant, 2020 · $10k
THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTSone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue +14%
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 Detroit Historical Society tells Detroit's stories and why they matter through its exhibits, programs, outreach, and the preservation and dissemination of its artifacts and collections.
Informing and educating the public and decision makers about environmental issues.
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.…
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.…
Inspire awareness, appreciation and passion for michigan's history and stories, culture and environment through the arts.
Promotion of activities to spur economic growth and revitalization in the city of detroit
To create life-enriching experiences that build meaningful relations, foster personal and professional growth, and celebrate culture in the heart of detroit.
To promote conditions favorable to job creation and business success in michigan.
For all state residents, diverse civic stakeholders and philanthropy, the center for michigan (the center) and its nonprofit newsrooms - bridge michigan and bridgedetroit - make michigan better through high-quality, nonpartisan journalism…
The chamber is the voice for business and works to power the economy for southeast michigan through public policy, advocacy and leading regional economic development and talent initiatives.
The nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.
CEC works with diverse stakeholders across Detroit to develop critical resources and system-level solutions that address common challenges faced by Detroit families in accessing quality education.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Detroit Public Media and the most unlike its peers is Friends of Peninsula Community Library. 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 37 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 17% 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.
51 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. 51 of the 73 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 GRAND TRAVERSE REGIONAL LAND CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds DETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds FORGOTTEN HARVEST INC ↗
- Who funds RACQUET UP DETROIT ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds DETROIT INSTITUTE FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds SAY DETROIT ↗
- Who funds TRINITY HEALTH - MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds GLEANERS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK OF SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN SCIENCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE MIDNIGHT GOLF PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds COLLEGE FOR CREATIVE STUDIES ↗
- Who funds JUDSON CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds YMCA of Metropolitan Detroit ↗
- Who funds FATHER FRED FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE GREENING OF DETROIT ↗
- Who funds The Great Lakes Childrens Museum ↗
- Who funds DETROIT RIVERFRONT CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds CHERRYLAND HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds DETROIT PUBLIC MEDIA ↗
- Who funds INTERLOCHEN CENTER FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds AUTOMOTIVE HALL OF FAME INC ↗
- Who funds DETROIT OPERA ↗
- Who funds LEADER DOGS FOR THE BLIND ↗
- Who funds BEAUMONT HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CRANBROOK EDUCATIONAL COMMUNITY ↗
- Who funds OAKLAND FAMILY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY HOUSE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COTS ↗
- Who funds SPHINX ORGANIZATION INC ↗
- Who funds DETROIT REGIONAL CHAMBER FOUNDATION INC ↗
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: Dte Energy Foundation · Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · The Kresge Foundation · Ford Philanthropy · United Way for Southeastern Michigan · The Carls Foundation · The Fred & Barbara Erb Family Foundation · The Barton Malow Foundation · Ethel and James Flinn Foundation · United Jewish Foundation · WK Kellogg Foundation · World Heritage 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 Ralph L & Winifred E Polk 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.
- Reach Out and Read Inc — 9% 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.