· Private foundation
The Bellis 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k9 grants · $26k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $89k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
- $250k+4 grants · $32M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LAWRENCE BELLIS GIFT FUND A | $8,159,937 |
| LAWRENCE BELLIS GIFT FUND C | $8,101,627 |
| LAWRENCE BELLIS GIFT FUND D | $8,097,597 |
| LAWRENCE BELLIS GIFT FUND B | $8,007,566 |
| UNITED MITOCHONDRIAL DISEASE FOUND | $50,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $27,000 |
| THE ZEKELMAN HOLOCAUST CENTER | $17,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $15,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| BLUE GRASS CENTER FOR AUSTIM | $10,000 |
| KEVIN'S SONG | $10,000 |
| BEYOND BASICS | $5,000 |
| KEEPER KITTIES RESCUE | $5,000 |
| LIVING AND LEARNING ENRICHMENT CTR | $5,000 |
| SOUTHWEST DETROIT BUSINESS ASSOCIAT | $3,500 |
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 (FY18–24, $125k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 1% 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.
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.
20 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2024, 18 since wound down; 18 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, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $32M 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
- EMEASTERSEALS MORC HEALTH CARE INC6× · 2018–2023 · $119k · revenue +160%
- CMColorado Mountain Bike Association3× · 2021–2023 · $98k · revenue +26%
- RMROCKY MOUNTAIN FELINE RESCUE INC2× · 2021–2023 · $58k · revenue +20%
Funded once
ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INCgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $85k · revenue +29%- FHFARBER HEBREW SCHOOLone grant, 2019 · $15k
- DEDETROIT EDUCATION SOCIETYone grant, 2019 · $15k
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.…
Informing and educating the public and decision makers about environmental issues.
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 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.
Dedicated to the empowerment of all the state's survivors of domestic and sexual violence. our mission is to develop and promote efforts aimed at the elimination of all domestic and sexual violence in michigan.
To promote conditions favorable to job creation and business success in michigan.
The organization was founded by a group of concerned citizens, working in cooperation with the detroit city council, to shape food policy and to work for a more localized, more just, and environmentally friendly food system. the…
Providing pathways to success for detroiters in need.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Veterans Support Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Colorado Mountain Bike Association. 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 29 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 27% 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 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.
29 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. 29 of the 63 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 EASTERSEALS MORC HEALTH CARE INC ↗
- Who funds Colorado Mountain Bike Association ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED MITOCHONDRIAL DISEASE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds ROCKY MOUNTAIN FELINE RESCUE INC ↗
- Who funds INTERREGNUM FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds WAYNE COUNTY MEDICAL SOCIETY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MERCY EDUCATION PROJECT ↗
- Who funds WHAT CATHOLICS BELIEVE ↗
- Who funds HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds TURNING POINT INC ↗
- Who funds BLOOD CANCER UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds THE US CHARITABLE GIFT TRUST ↗
- Who funds KEVINS SONG A NONPROFIT COMMUNITY EDUCATION ON DEPRESSION & SUICIDE ↗
- Who funds ALS OF MICHIGAN INC ↗
- Who funds LIVING & LEARNING ENRICHMENT CENTER ↗
- Who funds BEYOND BASICS ↗
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 · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · The Ralph C Wilson Jr Foundation · Ford Philanthropy · Henry Ford Southeast Michigan Community Health · United Way for Southeastern Michigan · The Kresge Foundation · Baird Foundation Inc · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc
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 The Bellis 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.