· Private foundation
The Brookby Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k90 grants · $105k
- $10k–50k34 grants · $714k
- $50k–250k26 grants · $2.1M
- $250k+1 grant · $500k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Oregon Symphony | $500,000 |
| UWM Foundation Inc | $200,000 |
| Inland Seas Education Association | $200,000 |
| Grand Rapids Symphony | $166,423 |
| Dairy Grazing Apprenticeship | $160,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $100,000 |
| Urban Ecology Center | $100,000 |
| URBAN ECOLOGY CENTER | $90,000 |
| Mote Marine Laboratory | $75,000 |
| Action for the Climate Emergency (ACE) | $75,000 |
| Michigan Civic Education Fund | $75,000 |
| Michigan League of Conservation Voters Education | $75,000 |
| Wisconsin Conservation Voices | $70,000 |
| Leelanau Conservancy | $70,000 |
| Milwaukee Riverkeeper | $60,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $423k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 98% 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 +46% since the first grant, against +33% for the ones you funded once.
193 repeat relationships — 129 still active in FY2024, 64 since wound down; 15 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, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $233k 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
THE UWM FOUNDATION INC8× · 2017–2024 · $1.5M · revenue +35%- DGDAIRY GRAZING ALLIANCE INC7× · 2018–2024 · $1.1M · revenue +223%
URBAN ECOLOGY CENTER INC8× · 2017–2024 · $1.0M · revenue +113%
Funded once
- GRGRAND RAPIDS BALLETgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $60k · revenue +59%
- LCLand Conservancy of West Michiganone grant, 2018 · $50k · revenue -65%
- TWTOGETHER WISCONSIN INCgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $50k · revenue +42%
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 purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
Wri is committed to creating change that improves people's lives and ensures the natural world can thrive. (see schedule o)wri's bold vision requires a formula for success we call "count it. change it. scale it.":- count it: our work is…
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
To promote public health, safety, and welfare through the improvement of the quality and quantity of drinking water and the development and furtherance of understanding of the problems relating thereto.
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
The minnesota center for environmental advocacy is a nonprofit organization that uses law, science and research to protect minnesota's environment, its natural resources and the health of its people.
To sustain, restore, and enhance the nation's fish, wildlife, plants, and habitats.
Nacwa is the national voice of public clean water utilities, shaping water policy, convening a vibrant peer network, and empowering water leaders.
The minnesota land trust protects and restores minnesota's most vital natural lands in order to provide wildlife habitat, clean water, outdoor experiences and scenic beauty for generations to come.
We conduct impartial public policy research and analysis to drive informed debate and effective decision-making in the state of wisconsin.
Informing and educating the public and decision makers about environmental issues.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Alliance for the Great Lakes and the most unlike its peers is Humane World for Animals International. 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 38 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.5% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
211 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. 211 of the 289 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 OREGON SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE UWM FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds DAIRY GRAZING ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds URBAN ECOLOGY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds GRAND TRAVERSE REGIONAL LAND CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds LEELANAU CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds MOTE MARINE LABORATORY INC ↗
- Who funds WISCONSIN CONSERVATION VOICES INC ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND POLICY CENTER OF THE MIDWEST ↗
- Who funds DA BLODGETT - ST JOHN'S ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE RIVERKEEPER INC ↗
- Who funds INLAND SEAS EDUCATION ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds INTERLOCHEN CENTER FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds SO PERCUSSION INC ↗
- Who funds RIVEREDGE NATURE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CLEAN WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN CIVIC EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds HUNGER TASK FORCE INC ↗
- Who funds TROUT UNLIMITED INC ↗
- Who funds Mequon Nature Preserve Inc ↗
- Who funds Aquinas College ↗
- Who funds JAPANESE GARDEN SOCIETY OF OREGON ↗
- Who funds CONSERVATION RESOURCE ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds WISCONSIN VOICES INC ↗
- Who funds CIRCLE OF BLUE INC ↗
- Who funds BLANDFORD NATURE CENTER ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF WISCONSIN FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds YWCA WEST CENTRAL MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds 45th Parallel ↗
- Who funds CAMP BLODGETT ↗
- Who funds BELOIT COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Hospice of Michigan Inc ↗
- Who funds SIXTEENTH STREET COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERS INC ↗
- Who funds SEEDS ↗
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: Greater Milwaukee Foundation Inc · Frey Foundation · Windward Fund · Herbert H Kohl Charities Inc · Grand Rapids Community Foundation · Dte Energy Foundation · The Wege Foundation · Oleson Foundation · The Meijer Foundation · Patagoniaorg · National Fish and Wildlife Foundation · Grand Traverse Regional Community 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 The Brookby 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.
- Associated Scientists at Woods Hole Inc — 54% of income from government
- Mercy Corps — 47% of income from government
- Save the Children Federation Inc — 30% of income from government
- Oregon Food Bank — 21% of income from government
- Associated Catholic Charities Inc — 10% of income from government
- Mote Marine Laboratory Inc — 4% of income from government
- Third Angle New Music Ensemble — 3% of income from government
- Chamber Music Northwest — 3% of income from government
- Wgbh Educational Foundation — 1% of income from government
- Metropolitan Youth Symphony — 1% of income from government
- Oregon Public Broadcasting — 1% of income from government
- Sandy Hook Promise Foundation — 0% of income from government
- Americares Foundation Inc — 0% of income from government
- Oregon Symphony Association — 0% of income from government
- Partners in Health a Nonprofit Corporation — 0% of income from government
- Portland State University Foundation — 0% of income from government
- Oxfam-America 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Brookby Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Brookby 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.