· Private foundation
The David and Carol Van Andel Family Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k10 grants · $36k
- $10k–50k12 grants · $269k
- $50k–250k18 grants · $1.3M
- $250k+9 grants · $6.8M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PINE REST CHRISTIAN HOSPITAL | $2,000,000 |
| GRAND ACTION FOUNDATION | $1,000,000 |
| MEL TROTTER MINISTRIES | $1,000,000 |
| JOHN BALL ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY | $755,000 |
| WESTERN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY | $627,839 |
| OPERA GRAND RAPIDS | $408,000 |
| GRAND RAPIDS NEHEMIAH PROJECT | $350,000 |
| MARY FREE BED REHABILITATION HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $333,333 |
| BETHANY CHRISTIAN SERVICES | $300,000 |
| GIRL SCOUTS OF MICHIGAN SHORE TO SHORE | $140,000 |
| CHILDREN'S HEALING CENTER | $125,000 |
| GRAND RAPIDS CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS | $100,000 |
| CASCADE FELLOWSHIP CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH | $90,000 |
| SALVATION ARMY | $85,000 |
| AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS | $85,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $3.0M) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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 +25% since the first grant, against +18% for the ones you funded once.
65 repeat relationships — 44 still active in FY2024, 21 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, 76% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.0M 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
- MTMEL TROTTER MINISTRIES5× · 2020–2024 · $3.1M · revenue +41%
- JBJOHN BALL ZOO5× · 2020–2024 · $3.0M · revenue +150%
- GAGRAND ACTION FOUNDATION 202× · 2023–2024 · $2.0M · revenue ×16 · 33% of their budget
Funded once
- UCUS Chamber of Commerce Foundationone grant, 2021 · $250k · revenue -27%
- FOFANS OF VALLEY FIELDgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $100k · revenue +203% · 45% of their budget
- GRGRAND RAPIDS PUBLIC MUSEUMgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $50k · revenue +89%
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 nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.
None
Engages, equips and empowers learners to explore their vocations, fulfill their potential and serve the world.
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.…
We believe that great schools are the cornerstone of a just and thriving community. ensuring that every child is able to attend a school that works is our moral and social imperative - our children deserve no less.
Inspire individuals and organizations to invest in their community to improve the quality of life.
The michigan christian home dba beacon hill at eastgate, a not-for-profit corporation, provides housing and health services in a christian environment for older adults, thus enabling them to meet their ongoing physical, social and…
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 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.
Equipping students to serve and glorify God. GCCS offers a Christ-centered education that is grounded in faith, connected through relationships, committed to excellence and prepared for service.
To promote conditions favorable to job creation and business success in michigan.
We, trinity health grand haven hospital and trinity health, serve together in the spirit of the gospel as a compassionate and transforming healing presence within our communities.trinity health grand haven hospital is a member of trinity…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Gilda's Club Grand Rapids and the most unlike its peers is Sams Fight for Sight. 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 36 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 9% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
84 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. 84 of the 103 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 MEL TROTTER MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds JOHN BALL ZOO ↗
- Who funds GRAND ACTION FOUNDATION 20 ↗
- Who funds PINE REST CHRISTIAN MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES ↗
- Who funds Opera Grand Rapids ↗
- Who funds WEDGWOOD CHRISTIAN SERVICES ↗
- Who funds HOPE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds ADA CHRISTIAN SCHOOL EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL OLYMPICS MICHIGAN INC ↗
- Who funds GRAND RAPIDS COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MARY FREE BED REHABILITATION HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GRAND RAPIDS NEHEMIAH PROJECT ↗
- Who funds The Young Men's Christian Association of Greater Grand Rapids (3019) ↗
- Who funds ICCF COMMUNITY HOMES ↗
- Who funds GRAND RAPIDS CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds Cornerstone University ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds HAND2HAND ↗
- Who funds RENEW THERAPEUTIC RIDING CENTER ↗
- Who funds VAN ANDEL RESEARCH INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds BLANDFORD NATURE CENTER ↗
- Who funds US Chamber of Commerce Foundation ↗
- Who funds KIDS' FOOD BASKET INC ↗
- Who funds GRAND RAPIDS PUBLIC MUSEUM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds The Potters House ↗
- Who funds Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty ↗
- Who funds GIRL SCOUTS OF MICHIGAN SHORE TO SHORE ↗
- Who funds AFRICAN-AMERICAN HEALTH INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds GILDA'S CLUB GRAND RAPIDS ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HEALING CENTER ↗
- Who funds Women's Resource Center ↗
- Who funds Greater Grand Rapids Chamber Foundation ↗
- Who funds AYA YOUTH COLLECTIVE ↗
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: Grand Rapids Community Foundation · Frey Foundation · Douglas & Maria Devos Foundation · Peter C & Emajean Cook Foundation · Cdv5 Foundation · Dick and Betsy Devos Family Foundation · The Meijer Foundation · Steve & Amy Van Andel Foundation · Daniel & Pamella Devos Foundation · The Wege Foundation · Heart of West Michigan United Way · The Community Foundation of the Holland/Zeeland Area 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 David and Carol Van Andel 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.
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.
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How do I get to The David and Carol Van Andel Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The David and Carol Van Andel 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.