· Private foundation
The Herrington-Fitch Family Foundation Inc C/O Leslie Lee
Its FY2025 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 clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k32 grants · $29k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $12k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $51k
- $250k+1 grant · $250k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| HISTORICAL ELK RAPIDS TOWN HALL ASSOCIATION | $250,000 |
| INLAND SEAS EDUCATION ASSOCIATION | $51,200 |
| NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY | $12,000 |
| AMERICAN RED CROSS | $2,200 |
| OTSEGO COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $2,118 |
| ELK RAPIDS AREA EDUCATION FUND | $2,000 |
| THE NATIONAL WRITERS SERIES | $2,000 |
| ELK RAPIDS SCHOLARSHIP FUND | $1,500 |
| GRAND TRAVERSE REGIONAL COMM FOUNDATION | $1,500 |
| COUNCIL OF MICHIGAN FOUNDATIONS | $1,500 |
| MUNSON HEALTHCARE REGIONAL FOUNDATION | $1,200 |
| SEEDS | $1,200 |
| GROUNDWORK CENTER | $1,200 |
| MICHIGAN LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS ED | $1,200 |
| GRAND TRAVERSE REGIONAL LAND CONSERVANCY | $1,200 |
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, $102k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
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 +41% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
39 repeat relationships — 32 still active in FY2025, 7 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 26% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $250k 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
- WHWOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION3× · 2019–2023 · $207k · revenue +32%
- TATRAVERSE AREA RECREATION & TRANSPORTATION TRAILS INC4× · 2020–2024 · $200k · revenue +89%
Northwestern University9× · 2017–2025 · $182k · revenue +41%
Funded once
- NMNORTHWEST MICHIGAN COMMUNITY ACTIONone grant, 2020 · $100k · revenue +19%
- DCDISCOVERY CENTER GREAT LAKESgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $50k · revenue +978%
- BHBENTLEY HISTORICAL LIBRARYone grant, 2022 · $40k
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.
Our mission is conserving West Michigans ecologically critical land. We protect land by creating public nature preserves, providing support to communities and local governments in creating natural areas, and helping private landowners…
To conserve, sustain, and connect natural areas, land, and waters that make the places we live special
The Center's mission is to inspire, entertain, educate, and serve all in Northern Michigan year-round by presenting exceptional experiences across the full spectrum of the performing arts and offering impactful educational opportunities.
To permanently protect and improve natural environments in Mid-Michigan by leading and inspiring actions that conserve vital habitats and waterways for the benefit of our entire community.
Be and create stewards for the water environment of michigan. provide high quality education for michigan's water professionals. educate and inform policy makers and the general public. promote scientifically sound environmental practices…
Safeguard southern michigan's land and water to support diverse, resilient, and thriving communities - forever
The nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.
To conserve the land, water and scenic character of leelanau county, and to provide educational programs to develop an understanding and appreciation of leelanau county's natural heritage.
Heart of the Lakes provides technical assistance, leadership training, and strategic communication tools that help organizations thrive - from grassroots land conservancies to larger regional conservation groups. Programs such as peer…
Liaa is a community service organization working to increase the sustainability of communities and expand civic engagement. our mission statement is: helping people to shape better communities through: participation, education, information…
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 advocate and facilitate the development of a network of multipurpose recreational trails in Northern Lower Michigan.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Northwest Michigan Community Action and the most unlike its peers is Pine Hollow Institute. 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 37 years old; the field is 17. 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 — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
33 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. 33 of the 56 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 PINE HOLLOW INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION ↗
- Who funds TRAVERSE AREA RECREATION & TRANSPORTATION TRAILS INC ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds INLAND SEAS EDUCATION ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST MICHIGAN COMMUNITY ACTION ↗
- Who funds GRAND TRAVERSE REGIONAL COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DISCOVERY CENTER GREAT LAKES ↗
- Who funds COUNCIL OF MICHIGAN FOUNDATIONS ↗
- Who funds TRAVERSE CITY FILM FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds ELK RAPIDS AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds TORCH LAKE PROTECTION ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds University of Michigan ↗
- Who funds SEEDS ↗
- Who funds GRAND TRAVERSE REGIONAL LAND CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds MUNSON HEALTHCARE FOUNDATIONS ↗
- Who funds GRASS RIVER NATURAL AREA INC ↗
- Who funds INTERLOCHEN CENTER FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds JORDAN RIVER ARTS COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds OTSEGO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GENERATIONS AHEAD ↗
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: Oleson Foundation · Grand Traverse Regional Community Foundation · The Art and Mary Schmuckal Family Foundation · Rotary Charities of Traverse City · Consumers Energy Foundation · The Brookby Foundation · Dte Energy Foundation · Jim and Diana Huckle Family Foundation · Frey Foundation · Les & Ann Biederman Foundation Inc · Green Brick Foundation Inc · Charlevoix County 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 Herrington-Fitch Family Foundation Inc C/O Leslie Lee 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.
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution — 63% 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.