· Private foundation
The Burdick-Thorne 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 $10k58 grants · $225k
- $10k–50k14 grants · $224k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| KALAMAZOO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $50,000 |
| KALAMAZOO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $25,000 |
| MILESTONE SENIOR SERVICES | $25,000 |
| WMU FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| KALAMAZOO NONPROFIT ADVOCACY COALITION | $20,000 |
| KALAMAZOO CULTURAL CENTER | $20,000 |
| WMU FOUNDATION | $16,000 |
| WMU FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| BRONSON HEALTH FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| FAMILY & CHILDREN SERVICES | $11,000 |
| ARTS COUNCIL OF GREATER KALAMAZOO | $11,000 |
| FONTANA CHAMBER ARTS | $10,500 |
| KALAMAZOO COLLEGE | $10,000 |
| KALAMAZOO COLLEGE | $10,000 |
| AMERICAN RED CROSS OF SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN | $10,000 |
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, $229k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 0% 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.
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 -74% for the ones you funded once.
65 repeat relationships — 52 still active in FY2024, 13 since wound down; 5 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, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15k 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
- KSKALAMAZOO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA8× · 2017–2024 · $579k · revenue +42%
- WMWESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2024 · $359k · revenue +149%
- KCKALAMAZOO COLLEGE8× · 2017–2024 · $283k · revenue +41%
Funded once
- COCITY OF KALAMAZOOone grant, 2018 · $50k
- WHWMU HOMER STRYKER SCHOOL OF MEDICINEone grant, 2018 · $40k
- PCPARK CLUB HISTORIC FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $15k · revenue -74%
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 mission of the kalamazoo foundation for excellence is to support the goals of the city of kalamazoo, fund aspirational investments in the city, and empower kalamazoo residents to achieve the lives they want for themselves and their…
To promote the arts of book printing, binding, printmaking, papermaking, and creative writing through a community workshop, teaching classes, publishing, and exhibitions
An independent school providing a supportive, challenging and creative academic environment for talented and motivated students to prepare them for life long achievement.
Supporting organization to kalamazoo community foundation
To improve and enhance the physical, social, and economic environment of the eastside section of the city of kalamazoo, michigan to the ends that the community may have a more pleasant, attractive, safe and convenient place to live and…
Long term development, stewardship, and protection of michigan parks located in kalamazoo county.
Glass art kalamazoo is a glass arts organization dedicated to teaching, creating, and promoting glass art. its mission is to enrich the community through exceptional glass art experiences. glass art kalamazoo currently offers classes,…
We will be the premier senior living provider that celebrates the whole person while embracing families and partnering with the community
Our mission is to support the city of kalamazoos recreational programs and help improve its parks. we envision better quality of life for the residents of kalamazoo through recreation. we grant scholarships to at-risk youth to support…
Assist downtown development authority in implementing the arcadia creek plan.
It is the mission of Kalamazoo Neighborhood Housing Services (KNHS), together with residents and community partners, to revitalize neighborhoods and promote comprehensive strategies that foster homeownership.
The mission of kalamazoo county ready 4s is to "advance fully accessible, high-quality pre-kindergarten education for every 3- and 4-year-old in kalamazoo county through collaborative leadership with public and private community partners."
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Kalamazoo Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is New Vic Theatricals Inc. 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 43 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 9% 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.
61 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. 61 of the 84 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 KALAMAZOO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO VALLEY COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FAMILY & CHILDREN SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF KALAMAZOO INC ↗
- Who funds ARTS COUNCIL OF GREATER KALAMAZOO ↗
- Who funds FONTANA CHAMBER ARTS ↗
- Who funds SENIOR SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds Kalamazoo Civic Theatre ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN LAND CONSERVENCY INC ↗
- Who funds Kalamazoo Nature Center ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO LOAVES & FISHES INC ↗
- Who funds MINISTRY WITH COMMUNITY INC ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO NONPROFIT ADVOCACY COALITION ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF SOUTH CENTRAL MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO REGIONAL EDUCATIONAL SERVICE AGENCY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Hospice Care of Southwest Michigan ↗
- Who funds HOUSING RESOURCES INC ↗
- Who funds HERITAGE COMMUNITY OF KALAMAZOO FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Kalamazoo Choral Arts Inc ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY HEALING CENTERS ↗
- Who funds PREVENTION WORKS INC ↗
- Who funds Sherman Lake YMCA Outdoor Center ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO CULTURAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds GRYPHON PLACE ↗
- Who funds JULIUS & ESTHER STULBERG COMPETITION INC ↗
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: Tyler-Little Family Foundation · Kalamazoo Community Foundation · Dorothy U Dalton Foundation Inc · Harold and Grace Upjohn Foundation · Irving S Gilmore Foundation · Marvin and Rosalie Okun Foundation · Suzanne Upjohn Delano Parish Foundation · H P & Genevieve Connable Fund · John E Fetzer Institute Inc · United Way of South Central Michigan · Jim Gilmore Jr Foundation · The Ronda E Stryker and William D Johnston 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 Burdick-Thorne 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Burdick-Thorne Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Burdick-Thorne 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.