· Private foundation
Robert and Bess Cook Foundation
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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CAPUCHIN SOUP KITCHEN | $4,000 |
| MEADOWBROOK CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH | $3,500 |
| FORGOTTEN HARVEST | $3,200 |
| ST JOHN CATHOLIC CHURCH | $2,500 |
| CLEARY UNIVERSITY | $1,800 |
| DETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION | $1,750 |
| ROYAL OAK HISTORICAL MUSEUM | $1,300 |
| METRO DETROIT POLICE & FIRE | $1,300 |
| DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS | $1,200 |
| OLIVET COLLEGE | $1,150 |
| YOUNGE DRADUL LING INC | $1,100 |
| GLEANERS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK | $1,000 |
| ST PAUL LUTHERAN CHURCH | $800 |
| AMERICAN RED CROSS | $750 |
| MICHIGAN HUMANE SOCIETY | $325 |
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 (FY25–25, $50) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
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 +20% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
38 repeat relationships — 30 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 2 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, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $300 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
FORGOTTEN HARVEST INC9× · 2017–2025 · $25k · revenue +12%
DETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION9× · 2017–2025 · $21k · revenue ×19- CUCLEARY UNIVERSITY9× · 2017–2025 · $19k · revenue +137%
Funded once
- SASALVATION ARMYone grant, 2017 · $500
- SPSOUTHFIELD PUBLIC LIBRARYone grant, 2017 · $500
- FLFISH & LOAVESone grant, 2017 · $400 · revenue -8%
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.
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.…
Michigan farm bureau (mfb) is a member directed agricultural organization whose purpose is to represent, protect, and enhance the business, economic, social, and educational interests of our members located throughout the state of michigan.
Bridging the gap between early-stage innovation and commercial application. partnering to de-risk, develop and scale-up discoveries into commercially-viable technology packages.
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.
To promote conditions favorable to job creation and business success in michigan.
Informing and educating the public and decision makers about environmental issues.
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.
The primary mission of the presidents council is to advocate higher education as a public good and to promote its collective value in serving the public interest and the state of michigan. the primary goal is to provide services to members…
The Association is an independent worldwide organization that nurtures lifelong relationships with and among current and future Michigan alumni. As a committed partner of the University the Association offers programs of relevance and…
Mifma supports the viability of all community-driven marketplaces so that they can connect all consumers to local farms and businesses.
The mission of the michigan health council is to facilitate the education, recruitment and retention of a diverse healthcare workforce by maximizing technology and partnerships.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Michigan Humane Society and the most unlike its peers is Burr Oak 4-H Club - Michigan State. 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 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 58 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 FORGOTTEN HARVEST INC ↗
- Who funds DETROIT PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CLEARY UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds OLIVET COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds GLEANERS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK OF SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE & RELATED DISORDERS ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS OF MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL OLYMPICS MICHIGAN INC ↗
- Who funds THE OPPORTUNITY FUND ↗
- Who funds CHAMBER MUSIC DETROIT ↗
- Who funds HOMES FOR OUR TROOPS INC ↗
- Who funds FISH & LOAVES ↗
- Who funds THE MICHIGAN HISPANIC COLLABORATIVE ↗
- Who funds University of Michigan ↗
- Who funds PANCREATIC CANCER ACTION NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE FUND ↗
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: Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · Dte Energy Foundation · The Kresge Foundation · WK Kellogg Foundation · Enterprise Holdings Foundation · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Robert and Bess Cook 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.
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% 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.
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Find your warmest path to Robert and Bess Cook 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.