· Private foundation
The Martin Family 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k69 grants · $219k
- $10k–50k26 grants · $441k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $200k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| U OF M - HEALTH SYSTEMSMICHIGAN MEDICINE | $150,000 |
| USSMA SAILING FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| U OF M - ACCELERATE BLUE FUND | $40,000 |
| GREAT LAKES CENTER FOR ARTS | $25,000 |
| LOYOLA ACADEMY | $25,000 |
| U OF M - OBSTETRICS AND GYNOCOLOGY | $25,000 |
| WITTENBERG UNIVERSITY | $25,000 |
| AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION | $25,000 |
| U OF M - DEAN'S DISCRETIONARY FUND | $25,000 |
| ANN ARBOR SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $25,000 |
| EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| U OF M - MARSAL SCHOOL OF EDUCATION DEAN'S DISCRETIONARY FUND | $25,000 |
| HARBOR SPRINGS AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $20,000 |
| SALVATION ARMY - HANCOCK | $15,000 |
| INTERNATIONAL SAMARITAN | $11,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $90k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 88% 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.
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 +27% since the first grant, against +7% for the ones you funded once.
112 repeat relationships — 82 still active in FY2024, 30 since wound down; 14 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, 74% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $225k 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
- TBTHE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF WITTENBERG COLLEGE5× · 2020–2024 · $340k · revenue +4%
- GLGreat Lakes Center for the Arts5× · 2020–2024 · $108k · revenue +53%
- AAAnn Arbor Symphony Orchestra Inc4× · 2020–2024 · $56k · revenue +78%
Funded once
- UOU OF M - DEPARTMENT OF UROLOGYone grant, 2021 · $200k
- BYBAYVIEW YACHT CLUBgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $150k · revenue +41%
- TFTAPESTRY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $100k
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.
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.…
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 Detroit Historical Society tells Detroit's stories and why they matter through its exhibits, programs, outreach, and the preservation and dissemination of its artifacts and collections.
The nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.
The mission of the michigan science center is to inspire curious minds of all ages to discover, explore and appreciate science, technology, engineering and math in a creative, dynamic learning environment.
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…
Inspire awareness, appreciation and passion for michigan's history and stories, culture and environment through the arts.
The mission of great lakes community action partnership is to create partnerships and opportunites to help individuals, families and communities thrive.
The Association is an independent worldwide organization that nurtures lifelong relationships with and among current and future Michigan alumni. As a committed partner of the University the Association offers programs of relevance and…
To promote conditions favorable to job creation and business success in michigan.
Informing and educating the public and decision makers about environmental issues.
Mid michigan community action guides local residents on the path to self-sufficiency through empowerment, education and community enrichment.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Opportunity for Survivors of Conflict Oppression and Disaster Inc. 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 39 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 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.9% 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.
105 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. 105 of the 189 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 THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF WITTENBERG COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds BAYVIEW YACHT CLUB ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL SAMARITAN ↗
- Who funds Great Lakes Center for the Arts ↗
- Who funds ANN ARBOR AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE USMMA SAILING FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra Inc ↗
- Who funds Little Traverse Conservancy Inc ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN THEATER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds BAY CLIFF HEALTH CAMP ↗
- Who funds FOOD GATHERERS ↗
- Who funds HARBOR SPRINGS AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds EASTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds EMERSON SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds KEWEENAW COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHILDRENS LITERACY NETWORK ↗
- Who funds YPSILANTI MEALS ON WHEELS ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF HURON VALLEY ↗
- Who funds GIRLS GROUP ↗
- Who funds SHELTER ASSOCIATION OF WASHTENAW COUNTY ↗
- Who funds SOS COMMUNITY SERVICES ↗
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: Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation · Harry a and Margaret D Towsley Foundation · United Way of Washtenaw County · James a and Faith Knight Foundation · Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · Duffy Foundation · Dte Energy Foundation · The Buhr Foundation · Charles Stewart Mott Foundation · United Way for Southeastern Michigan · Edward F Redies Foundation Inc · THE MOSAIC FOUNDATION (Of R & P Heydon)
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 Martin 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.
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 Martin Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Martin 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.