· Private foundation
The Lisa and Brian Meer 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 $10k32 grants · $40k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $44k
- $250k+1 grant · $250k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $250,000 |
| GESHER HUMAN SERVICES | $14,000 |
| FRIENDSHIP CIRCLE OF MICHIGAN | $10,100 |
| JEWISH FEDERATION OF METROPOLITAN DETROIT | $10,000 |
| YAD ESRA | $10,000 |
| OAKLAND UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
| OAKLAND FAMILY SERVICES | $5,000 |
| THE VILLAGE CLUB FOUNDATION | $3,800 |
| CRANBROOK COLLECTIONS & RESEARCH | $3,500 |
| KARMANOS CANCER INSTITUTE | $2,640 |
| CRANBROOK EDUCATIONAL COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT | $2,500 |
| DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS | $2,000 |
| JARC | $2,000 |
| JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER | $1,600 |
| CRANBROOK SCHOOLS | $1,000 |
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 (FY19–24, $104k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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 +47% since the first grant, against +46% for the ones you funded once.
60 repeat relationships — 31 still active in FY2024, 29 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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- YEYAD EZRA4× · 2020–2024 · $30k · revenue +12%
- GHGESHER HUMAN SERVICES2× · 2023–2024 · $28k · revenue +47%
- TVTHE VILLAGE CLUB FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2024 · $15k · revenue +89%
Funded once
- BRBAIS REFOEL FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $92k
- JMJAMES MADISON EDUCATION FUND INCgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $24k · revenue +49%
- UKUM KALEMKARIAN LUNG CANCER RESEARCHone grant, 2019 · $1k
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 jewish fund is organized and operates exclusively for charitable, educational, and religious purposes. the fund's primary activities are: supporting a jewish health care mission in the greater detroit area and michigan; promotion of…
Delta dental fund's mission is to improve the oral health of the public and to advance dental science and the dental profession through research and education.
The united jewish foundation of detroit owns, manages and invests jewish communal assets, including general and endowment funds, agency endowments, supporting foundations and real property. the foundation is committed to ensuring that…
We nurture a sense of community and enrich the lives of older adults, while embracing jewish values and celebrating life.
We nurture a sense of community and enrich the lives of older adults, while embracing jewish values and celebrating life.
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.…
Djj advances racial and economic justice by developing metro detroit jews as community organizers who fight for transformative policy change in deep partnership with neighbors
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 corporation is organized and shall be operated exclusively for charitable, educational and scientific purposes by conducting or supporting activites exclusively for the benefit of, to perform the functions of, or to carry out the…
Foundation for detroit's future (fdf) shall work to lessen the burdens of government, combat community deterioration, and improve the quality of life of the general public in and around the city of detroit through, among other things,…
The chamber is the voice for business and works to power the economy for southeast michigan through public policy, advocacy and leading regional economic development and talent initiatives.
Operating under the name mjhs foundation, the mission of this philanthropic organization is to raise the funds necessary to support the charitable health care efforts of the organizations within the mjhs health system family. with roots…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jewish Federation of Detroit and the most unlike its peers is Bais Refoel Foundation. 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 46 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 8% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
46 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. 46 of the 97 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 DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds BAIS REFOEL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds YAD EZRA ↗
- Who funds GESHER HUMAN SERVICES ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF DETROIT ↗
- Who funds JAMES MADISON EDUCATION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds THE VILLAGE CLUB FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS ↗
- Who funds JARC ↗
- Who funds CRANBROOK EDUCATIONAL COMMUNITY ↗
- Who funds OAKLAND FAMILY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds BRILLIANT DETROIT ↗
- Who funds DETROIT OPERA ↗
- Who funds HEBREW FREE LOAN ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE ↗
- Who funds LIGHTHOUSE OF OAKLAND COUNTY ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF ARMENIA CORPORATION ↗
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: Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · Edward C and Linda Dresner Levy Foundation · The Kresge Foundation · Marjorie and Maxwell Jospey Foundation · George M and Jo Elyn Nyman Charitable Trust · The Eugene Applebaum Family Foundation · United Way for Southeastern Michigan · Dte Energy Foundation · Donald R and Esther Simon Foundation · Marvin and Betty Danto Family Foundation · Deroy Testamentary Foundation · Phillip and Elizabeth Filmer Memorial
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 Lisa and Brian Meer 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.
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Lisa and Brian Meer Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Lisa and Brian Meer 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.