· Private foundation
The Kresge 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 $10k21 grants · $19k
- $10k–50k77 grants · $1.9M
- $50k–250k490 grants · $59M
- $250k+212 grants · $109M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FOUNDATION FOR DETROITS FUTURE | $5,000,000 |
| THE BLACKBAUD GIVING FUND | $4,406,874 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN | $2,830,000 |
| VOSE RIVER CHARITABLE FUND | $2,700,000 |
| THE BARACK OBAMA FOUNDATION | $2,400,000 |
| ROCKEFELLER PHILANTHROPY ADVISORS INC | $2,150,000 |
| OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INDIAN AFFAIRS | $2,000,000 |
| WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH & TECHNOLOGY PARK IN THE CITY OF DETROIT | $2,000,000 |
| MARYGROVE CONSERVANCY SUPPORT CORPORATION | $2,000,000 |
| COLLEGE FOR CREATIVE STUDIES | $1,823,000 |
| CULTURESOURCE | $1,757,250 |
| ENTERPRISE COMMUNITY PARTNERS INC | $1,666,000 |
| M-1 RAIL | $1,600,000 |
| DETROIT FUTURE CITY | $1,400,000 |
| URBAN INSTITUTE | $1,126,000 |
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, $35.5M) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 80% 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 9% of The Kresge Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 27% of the giving stays in MI; read by stated purpose it is 29% — more of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +40% since the first grant, against +33% for the ones you funded once.
1218 repeat relationships — 526 still active in FY2024, 692 since wound down; 95 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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $14M 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
- MCMARYGROVE CONSERVANCY6× · 2019–2024 · $17M · revenue +190% · 75% of their budget
INVEST DETROIT FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2024 · $17M · revenue +117%
COLLEGE FOR CREATIVE STUDIES8× · 2017–2024 · $16M · revenue +25%
Funded once
- RAREGIONAL AREA INITIAL LINKone grant, 2017 · $6.0M
- UOUNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDAone grant, 2022 · $2.5M
- LILINCOLN INSTITUTE OF LAND POLICYone grant, 2023 · $1.1M
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.
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
Common future is a network of pioneering leaders across the u.s. and canada who work deeply within their communities to create alternative approaches to business, philanthropy, and investing. we envision an economy that has transitioned…
Building a movement of diverse, upwardly mobile college grads overcoming underemployment through digital skills and peer connections.
We empower directors and transform boards to be future ready.
The washington area community investment fund (wacif) is a nonprofit community loan fund focused on increasing equity and economic opportunity in the washington, dc area's underserved communities. wacif's mission is driven is driven by…
Council for court excellence's (cce's) mission is to bring people together to conduct research, educate, and advocate to make d.c.'s unique legal systems more just, equitable, and accountable to the community.
The association of washington cities builds connections between our state's diverse cities and towns, while providing our members with the support needed to thrive through delivery of data-driven education, nationally recognized pooling…
Common impact's mission is to strengthen the capacity of social change organizations, enabling them to better run and scale their programs. through its partnership with companies, common impact taps into the business skills and expertise…
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
Grow businesses, build wealth and increase reinvestement in the african communities of minnesota
Pidc plans and implements economic development initiatives (see schedule o) which enhance the competitive environment, generate jobs and produce higher tax ratables throughout philadelphia.
All our efforts support our strategic goals to increase housing supply, advance racial equity and build resilience and upward mobility.the organization raises private capital through investment and by forming effective partnerships.…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Community Catalyst Inc and the most unlike its peers is Plymouth Scholars Pto. 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 29 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% 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.
1556 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. 1556 of the 2,000 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 FOUNDATION FOR DETROIT'S FUTURE ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR SOUTHEAST MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds MARYGROVE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds THE BLACKBAUD GIVING FUND ↗
- Who funds INVEST DETROIT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COLLEGE FOR CREATIVE STUDIES ↗
- Who funds NEW VENTURE FUND ↗
- Who funds MARYGROVE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds ENTERPRISE COMMUNITY PARTNERS INC ↗
- Who funds Detroit Future City ↗
- Who funds M-1 RAIL ↗
- Who funds ROCKEFELLER PHILANTHROPY ADVISORS INC ↗
- Who funds LOCAL INITIATIVES SUPPORT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds POLICYLINK ↗
- Who funds THE URBAN INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION ↗
- Who funds VOSE RIVER CHARITABLE FUND ↗
- Who funds URBAN SUSTAINABILITY DIRECTORS NETWORK ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY WORLDWIDE ↗
- Who funds THE ASPEN INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY PARK IN THE CITY OF DETROIT ↗
- Who funds EDUCATION COMMISSION OF THE STATES ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN INSTITUTE OF LAND POLICY ↗
- Who funds CULTURESOURCE ↗
- Who funds MARYGROVE CONSERVANCY SUPPORT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL COLLEGE ATTAINMENT NETWORK ↗
- Who funds MIDTOWN DETROIT INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN PUBLIC HUMAN SERVICES ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT MERCY ↗
- Who funds THE GREATER NEW ORLEANS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MAYOR'S INSTITUTE FOR EXCELLENCE IN GOVERNMENT INC ↗
- Who funds NEO Philanthropy Inc ↗
- Who funds LIVING CITIES INC THE NATIONAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds MOVEMENT STRATEGY CENTER ↗
- Who funds Center on Budget and Policy Priorities ↗
- Who funds RACE FORWARD ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE FOR SUSTAINABLE COMMUNITIES ↗
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: The Fred & Barbara Erb Family Foundation · Hudson-Webber Foundation · The Skillman Foundation · Surdna Foundation Inc · Freedom Together Foundation · McGregor Fund · Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · United Way for Southeastern Michigan · The Ralph C Wilson Jr Foundation · Culturesource · Max M & Marjorie S Fisher Foundation Inc · The Gilbert Family 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 Kresge 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.
- Institute for Sustainable Communities — 100% of income from government
- Utec Inc — 46% of income from government
- Center for Urban Families Inc — 36% of income from government
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology — 35% of income from government
- Enterprise Community Partners Inc — 22% of income from government
- Third Sector Capital Partners Inc — 16% of income from government
- Community Catalyst Inc — 15% of income from government
- National Association of Community Health Centers Inc — 12% of income from government
- Social Finance Inc — 12% of income from government
- Jobs for the Future Inc — 11% of income from government
- Northeastern University — 7% of income from government
- Third Sector New England Inc — 3% of income from government
- Achieving the Dream Inc — 0% of income from government
- Anthropocene Alliance — 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.