· Private foundation
The Mall Family Foundation
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 placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k11 grants · $60k
- $10k–50k14 grants · $185k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY | $25,000 |
| ST PETER LUTHERAN CHURCH | $20,000 |
| PARADISUS DEI | $20,000 |
| BEER CITY DOG BISCUITS | $20,000 |
| KIDS' FOOD BASKET | $10,000 |
| MT CALVARY LUTHERAN CHURCH | $10,000 |
| MEL TROTTER MINISTRIES | $10,000 |
| ONE DAY NICHE | $10,000 |
| HAVE MERCY | $10,000 |
| CENTRAL MONTCALM COMMUNITY FUND | $10,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR MASON COUNTY | $10,000 |
| KINGS TABLE MINISTRY | $10,000 |
| HOLY FAMILY SCHOOL OF FAITH | $10,000 |
| NORTH KENT CONNECT | $10,000 |
| NORTHFIELD FOOD PANTRY | $7,500 |
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 (FY20–25, $64k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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 15% of The Mall Family 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, 70% of the giving stays in MI; read by stated purpose it is 61% — less 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 +34% since the first grant, against +13% for the ones you funded once.
29 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2025, 13 since wound down; 6 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, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $33k 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
- HMHave Mercy6× · 2020–2025 · $63k · revenue +44%
- PDPARADISUS DEI INC5× · 2021–2025 · $55k · revenue +79%
- BCBEER CITY DOG BISCUITS6× · 2020–2025 · $44k · revenue +254%
Funded once
- CCCATHOLIC CHARITIES OF W MIone grant, 2023 · $5k
- MOMEALS ON WHEELSone grant, 2020 · $5k
- HDHELEN DEVOS CHILDREN'S HOSPITALone grant, 2020 · $5k
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.
Catholic human services inc. enhances the lives of those we serve by providing hope-filled social, emotional and spiritual support to all people.
Catholic charities is dedicated to provide extensive social service programs to help people challenged by developmental disabilities, frail and vulnerable elders, families and children. the organization also provides services through…
To provide quality care, facilities and supportive services for adults with a developmental disability, traumatic brain injury or mental illness. being enabled by god, we strive to provide an intentionally christian environment and program…
Catholic Community Response Team provides direct support and referral services to those in crisis needing emergency assistance to meet their basic needs. We do it in a manner inspired by the Gospel of Jesus. Our focus is to keep families…
Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw County D/B/A Catholic Charities Washtenaw County provides diverse, holistic social services including adoption and pregnancy counseling, food and basic needs assistance, domestic and child abuse…
To provide quality care, facilities, and supportive services for adults with a developmental disability, traumatic brain injury or mental illness. being enabled by god, we strive to provide an intentionally christian environment and…
Cathedral center's mission is to provide a safe environment for women and families, while working to end homelessness one life at a time. the cathedral center serves unaccompanied women and families with children who are homeless or…
Christian care communities enhances the journey of life for those we serve. recognizing the unique needs of each individual christian care offers an array of housing and care options including independent living. 24-hour skilled nursing…
Luther home of mercy (lhm) is a ministry enriching lives and individual abilities, serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Hope gospel mission exists to offer christ-centered, life changing help to the homeless and needy in western wisconsin.
The Center's mission is to reach out in Christ's love by assisting individuals/families who are facing difficult situations.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Gilda's Club Grand Rapids and the most unlike its peers is Hillsdale College. 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 23 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 6% 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.
27 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. 27 of the 48 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 Have Mercy ↗
- Who funds PARADISUS DEI INC ↗
- Who funds BEER CITY DOG BISCUITS ↗
- Who funds KIDS' FOOD BASKET INC ↗
- Who funds ONE DAY NICHE ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD COMMUNITY SERVICE CENTER ↗
- Who funds HILLSDALE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL MONTCALM COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FRANCISCAN LIFE CENTER NETWORK INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds MEL TROTTER MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds CLAY STREET CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE FAMILY HOPE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR MUSKEGON COUNTY ↗
- Who funds WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds INDIAN TRAILS CAMP ↗
- Who funds NILES TOWNSHIP FOOD PANTRY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CONSERVANCY FOR CUYAHOGA VALLEY NATIONAL PARK ↗
- Who funds GILDA'S CLUB GRAND RAPIDS ↗
- Who funds Pregnancy Resource Center ↗
- Who funds AUTISM ALLIANCE OF MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds RENEWAL MINISTRIES INC ↗
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 · Peter C & Emajean Cook Foundation · Frey Foundation · Douglas & Maria Devos Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Ge Aerospace Foundation · Grand Haven Area Community Foundation Inc · Feeding America West Michigan · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Baird Foundation Inc · American Endowment 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 Mall 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.
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% of income from government
- Franciscan Life Center Network Incorporated — 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 Mall Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Mall 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.