· Private foundation
Song 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 $10k6 grants · $29k
- $10k–50k16 grants · $330k
- $50k–250k20 grants · $1.9M
- $250k+1 grant · $250k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ACLU FUND OF MICHIGAN | $250,000 |
| FREEDOM HOUSE | $175,000 |
| OUTLIER MEDIA | $150,000 |
| AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL MUSEUM | $150,000 |
| MICHIGAN FOUNDERS FUND | $150,000 |
| LIGHTSHIP FOUNDATION | $150,000 |
| GENESIS HARBOR OPPORTUNITIES PROMOTING | $125,000 |
| GHOSTLIGHT ARTS INITIATIVE | $125,000 |
| MICHIGAN EDUCATION JUSTICE COALITION | $100,000 |
| CENTREPOLIS ACCELERATOR | $100,000 |
| LEADERS ADVANCING AND HELPING COMMUNITIES | $100,000 |
| YPSILANTI MEALS ON WHEELS | $87,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $75,000 |
| MOSES | $75,000 |
| DETROIT BLACK FARMER LAND FUND | $70,000 |
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 (FY23–24, $285k) land where the poverty rate runs at 21%, 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 +29% since the first grant, against +23% for the ones you funded once.
12 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2024, 5 since wound down; 35 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, 26% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.8M 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
- MFMICHIGAN FOUNDERS FUND2× · 2023–2024 · $253k · revenue +61%
Detroit Justice Center2× · 2022–2023 · $250k · revenue +44%
PRO PUBLICA INC2× · 2022–2023 · $200k · revenue +44%
Funded once
- AAAnn Arbor Spark Foundationone grant, 2020 · $1.0M · revenue -89% · 63% of their budget
- SDSCHWAB DONOR ADVISOR FUNDone grant, 2023 · $400k
- UWUNITED WAY OF WASHTENAW COUNTYone grant, 2020 · $200k · revenue -92%
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.
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.
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.…
To strategically solve problems through collaboratives with City of Detroit Departments, nonprofit organizations and local grant makers in order to secure the maximum federal, state, and national foundation dollars for the city Detroit.
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.…
Promotion of activities to spur economic growth and revitalization in the city of detroit
Providing pathways to success for detroiters in need.
Endeavor Detroit is leading the high-impact entrepreneurship movement in Michigan and the wider Great Lakes region, catalyzing long-term economic growth by selecting, mentoring, and supporting the best high-impact entrepreneurs in the…
The Youth Connection is committed to connecting all youth and their families in metro Detroit to a brighter future by providing quality programs and supportive services.
To apply the principles of workforce development to grow michigan's economy while improving the lives of michigan workers.
Detroit Experience Factory is a leading resource for both visitors and locals to discover, experience and learn about the people, places and projects around the city of Detroit.
Informing and educating the public and decision makers about environmental issues.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Michigan Founders Fund and the most unlike its peers is Moses Inc. 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 18 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) — 21% of your grantees by number, and just 18% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
44 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. 44 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 Ann Arbor Spark Foundation ↗
- Who funds OUTLIER MEDIA ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN FOUNDERS FUND ↗
- Who funds Detroit Justice Center ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF WASHTENAW COUNTY ↗
- Who funds PRO PUBLICA INC ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS INC ↗
- Who funds DETROIT REGIONAL CHAMBER ↗
- Who funds FREEDOM HOUSE DETROIT ↗
- Who funds AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURAL & HISTORICAL MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds DOWNTOWN DETROIT PARTNERSHIP INC ↗
- Who funds Hillman Accelerator ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FAMILY SERVICES OF WASHTENAW COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds ANN ARBOR DISTRICT LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds LAHC - LEADERS ADVANCING AND HELPING COMMUNITIES ↗
- Who funds YPSILANTI MEALS ON WHEELS ↗
- Who funds FORCE Detroit Inc ↗
- Who funds MOSES INC ↗
- Who funds 482 FORWARD ↗
- Who funds GREENLIGHT FUND INC ↗
- Who funds BLACK MALE EDUCATORS ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY ACTION NETWORK ↗
- Who funds DETROIT CHANGE INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Artspace Projects Inc ↗
- Who funds STUDENT ADVOCACY CENTER OF MICHIGAN INC ↗
- Who funds WASHTENAW HOUSING ALLIANCE ↗
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 · United Way for Southeastern Michigan · The Skillman Foundation · Ford Philanthropy · McGregor Fund · Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation · The Ralph C Wilson Jr Foundation · WK Kellogg Foundation · Hudson-Webber Foundation · James a and Faith Knight Foundation · The Martin Family 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 Song 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.