· Private foundation
The George & Lucile Heeringa Foundation
Its FY2022 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
70% of The George & Lucile Heeringa Foundation’s FY2022 grant dollars went to The Community Foundation Of The Holland/Zeeland Area Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2022 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2019, the last year The George & Lucile Heeringa Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 5 organizations, $60k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2022.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2019
- Under $10k25 grants · $40k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $20k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| OTTAWA AREA CAREERLINE TECH CENTER | $20,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF THE HOLLANDZEELAND AREA | $7,500 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN | $5,000 |
| WEST MICHIGAN AVIATION ACADEMY | $3,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,000 |
| VAN RAALTE FARM CIVIL WAR MUSTER | $2,500 |
| JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT | $2,500 |
| HOPE COLLEGE | $2,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–22) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
34 repeat relationships: 17 still active in FY2019, 17 since wound down; 24 grantees were first funded in FY2019 (too recent to call). Read against FY2019, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2022, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4k went to new ones.
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- HCHOPE COLLEGE3× · 2017–2021 · $1.0M · revenue +37%
- UOUniversity of Michigan2× · 2019–2020 · $80k · revenue +140% · 28% of their budget
- CDChild Development Services of Ottawa County Inc2× · 2018–2019 · $1k · revenue +26%
Funded once
- HCHOLLAND COMMUNITY FOUNDATION - HOLLAND PROMISEone grant, 2018 · $8k
- CTCAREERLINE TECH CENTERone grant, 2018 · $7k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $2k
How this is measured
Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
5 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.
How this is measured
Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 5 of the 79 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.
Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding
A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
Co-funders
Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.
Open a dossier: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization The George & Lucile Heeringa Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The George & Lucile Heeringa Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
How this is measured
Play a game based on George & Lucile Heeringa’s filings →