How much does Say Detroit give?

Say Detroit reported 19 itemized grants totaling $289,500, out of $774,989 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 17 and 22 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does Say Detroit fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Health (30%), Housing & Shelter (19%), Education (11%).

Who are Say Detroit's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries ($826k), College for Creative Studies ($310k), Cass Community Social Services Inc ($205k).

Does Say Detroit fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 20% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Which funders back the same organizations as Say Detroit?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, United Way for Southeastern Michigan, Ford Philanthropy.

Say Detroit

Say Detroit at a glance Mostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Say Detroit

Providing pathways to success for detroiters in need.

$775k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$50k

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Health$836kHousing & Shelter$511kEducation$310kYouth Development$297kHuman Services$169kRecreation & Sports$106kCommunity Improvement$100kArts & Culture$80kOther$0

02FY2024 · 19 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured

The 19 grants below total $289,500, the rows itemized in this filing. The $774,989 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $485,489 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k1 grant · $8k
$10k–50k17 grants · $232k
$50k–250k1 grant · $50k

$12,500

Median grant

States reached

$12M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
COLLEGE FOR CREATIVE STUDIES	$50,000
CASS COMMUNITY SOCIAL SERVICES	$25,000
DETROIT RESCUE MISSION	$25,000
WAYNE COUNTY NEIGHBORHOOD LEGAL SERVICES	$15,000
MICHIGAN VETERANS FOUNDATION	$15,000
SASHA CENTER	$15,000
LA SED INC	$15,000
HUMBLE DESIGN	$15,000
COTSBRIGHT BEGINNINGS	$12,500
AVALON VILLAGE INC	$12,500
WESTSIDE CULTURAL & ATHLETIC CLUB	$12,000
BOYS HOPE AND GIRLS HOPE OF MICHIGAN	$10,000
BING YOUTH INSTITUTE	$10,000
FULL COUNT FOUNDATION	$10,000
NOTES FOR NOTES	$10,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–24, $150k) land where the poverty rate runs at 21%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 99% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 10% of Say Detroit’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 97% of the giving stays in MI; by stated purpose, 87%.

Say Detroitlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address

How this is measured

Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

94%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$2.6M · 28 repeat orgs$174k to everyone else

28 repeat relationships: 17 still active in FY2024, 11 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$2.6M

$154k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+47%

+55%

Still filing today

61%

35%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $20k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Human ServicesYouth DevelopmentEducationHousing & ShelterInternationalHealthOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

DR
Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries
8× · 2017–2024 · $826k · revenue +20%
COLLEGE FOR CREATIVE STUDIES
8× · 2017–2024 · $310k · revenue +25%
CC
CASS COMMUNITY SOCIAL SERVICES INC
8× · 2017–2024 · $205k · revenue +59%

Funded once

DA
DETROIT AREA AGENCY ON AGINGgraduated
one grant, 2020 · $30k · revenue +58%
LA
LIVING AND LEARNING ENRICHMENT
one grant, 2021 · $15k
IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2023 · $10k

How this is measured

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

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Dream of Detroit

Dream of Detroit is combining community organizing with strategic housing and land development to build a healthy community and empower a marginalized neighborhood on the Westside of Detroit.

Human Services

About Face Detroit

—

Detroit Donates Inc

Housing & Shelter

Detroit Phoenix Center

To provide critical resources, support and a safe nurturing environment for youth transitioning out of homelessness and poverty.

Human Services

Arise Detroit

To inspire a community of active engagement, personal responsibility and hope by connecting people to opportunities and resources to transform the quality of life for all Detroiters.

Community Improvement

Say Detroit

Providing pathways to success for detroiters in need.

Housing & Shelter

Homeless Action Network of Detroit

Our mission is to increase awareness of the problems of people who are homeless and the development and carrying out of strategies to create permanent solutions to homelessness in our community.

Human Services

Better Way Detroit

Mentor and assist homeless individuals

Human Services

The Detroit Equity Report Inc

To promote equality and inclusion in society.

Employment

Freedom House Detroit

Freedom House Detroit's mission is to "Support and empower refugees, asylum seekers, and others seeking humanitarian protection on their journey to safety, security, and freedom by providing comprehensive services in an inclusive and…

Human Services

Detroit Blight Busters Inc

Detroit blight busters, inc's mission is to stabilize, revitalize and rebuild detroit neighborhoods by demolishing, renovating and boarding up blighted homes for community use, building community partnerships and sponsoring events that…

Community Improvement

Good Jobs Now Inc

To build the political and economic power of low and moderate-income detroiters of color through neighborhood-driven community organizing and civic engagement in order to change public policy and communities for the better.

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries; the most unlike its peers is The Dre Project. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

05the grantee network

31 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 31 of the 50 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

26/31

Grantees still filing

24/31

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$1,064,460Health$826,186Education$315,000Housing & Shelter$191,000Human Services$150,325Youth Development$127,000Arts & Culture$67,500

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Community Foundation for Southeast MichiganMI31.7× affinity14 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · United Way for Southeastern Michigan · Ford Philanthropy · DTE Energy Foundation · Comerica Charitable Foundation · The Kresge Foundation · Detroit2nepal Foundation · Detroit Area Agency on Aging · The Marshall Mathers Foundation · Marjorie and Maxwell Jospey Foundation · Fca Foundation · The Skillman Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Say Detroit funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Say Detroit. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

7report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Say Detroit?

Find your warmest path to Say Detroit 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.

Play a game based on Say Detroit’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home