· Private foundation
Sterken Family Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $49,574 |
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 (FY20–22, $18k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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 +24% since the first grant, against +14% for the ones you funded once.
30 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2025, 29 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- PHPackard Health Inc2× · 2021–2022 · $20k · revenue +42%
- MTMICHIGAN THEATER FOUNDATION INC2× · 2021–2022 · $6k · revenue +102%
- FGFOOD GATHERERS2× · 2021–2022 · $2k · revenue +4%
Funded once
- HCHope Clinicone grant, 2022 · $500
- BABreakfast at St Andrewsone grant, 2022 · $500
- PRPurple Rose Theater2× · 2021–2022 · $500
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.
To advance the safety, independence, and economic stability of those most affected by poverty, racism, and other structurally oppressive systems by increasing access to justice and working for systemic solutions.
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.…
The league's mission is to promote racial equity, economic security, health, and well being for all people in michigan through policy change.
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.
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.…
Assisting the community mental health boards of michigan in developing methods for mental health planning, care and treatment.
Mifma supports the viability of all community-driven marketplaces so that they can connect all consumers to local farms and businesses.
To provide multi-specialty surgical care, humanitarian aid and educational support to people in low- and middle-income countries.
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…
Mid michigan community action guides local residents on the path to self-sufficiency through empowerment, education and community enrichment.
We create, nurture, and empower a global community of scholars focused on creating, advancing, and disseminating knowledge in international business research, education, policy, and practice.
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Ozone House Inc and the most unlike its peers is Partners in Health a Nonprofit Corporation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 37 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
25 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. 25 of the 50 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 MICHIGAN KENYA PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds Packard Health Inc ↗
- Who funds OZONE HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN THEATER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FOOD GATHERERS ↗
- Who funds SOS COMMUNITY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds CORNER HEALTH CENTER ↗
- Who funds WASHTENAW HOUSING ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds SCRAP BOX ↗
- Who funds GIRLS GROUP ↗
- Who funds OUR HOUSE ↗
- Who funds THE INNOCENCE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDRENS LITERACY NETWORK ↗
- Who funds THE CARTER CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Friends In Deed ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS IN HEALTH A NONPROFIT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds GLOBALGIVING FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds Neutral Zone ↗
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: Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation · United Way of Washtenaw County · Harry a and Margaret D Towsley Foundation · James a and Faith Knight Foundation · The Buhr Foundation · Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · Edward F Redies Foundation Inc · Harold and Jean Grossman Family Foundation · The Martin Family Foundation · Jenkins Foundation · Thrift Shop Association of Ann Arbor · Duffy 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 Sterken Family 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.
- Partners in Health a Nonprofit Corporation — 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Sterken Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Sterken Family 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.