· Private foundation
The McKeen Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $2k
- $10k–50k14 grants · $170k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| KIRK IN THE HILLS | $50,000 |
| PROVINCE OF ST JOSEPH OF THE | $20,000 |
| GLEANERS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK INC | $20,000 |
| SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK OF ORANGE | $20,000 |
| OAKLAND HOPE | $10,000 |
| PEN AMERICA | $10,000 |
| AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION | $10,000 |
| AUTISM ALLIANCE OF MICHIGAN | $10,000 |
| UNITED CEREBRAL PALSY INC | $10,000 |
| HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM | $10,000 |
| EVERY MOTHER COUNTS | $10,000 |
| WILLIAM J BRENNAN JR CENTER FOR JUSTICE | $10,000 |
| ELECTRIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION INC | $10,000 |
| SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC | $10,000 |
| PRO PUBLICA INC | $10,000 |
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, $18k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
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 +134% since the first grant, against +32% for the ones you funded once.
14 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2025, 11 since wound down; 13 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, 28% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $160k 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
- UOUniversity of Michigan8× · 2017–2024 · $99k · revenue +202%
- PVPresbyterian Villages of Michigan5× · 2017–2024 · $18k · revenue +277%
- TVTHE VILLAGE CLUB FOUNDATION6× · 2020–2025 · $12k · revenue +134%
Funded once
- MAMANCHESTER AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY INCgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $500 · revenue +32%
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 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.
To promote conditions favorable to job creation and business success in michigan.
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
Informing and educating the public and decision makers about environmental issues.
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.…
Michigan farm bureau (mfb) is a member directed agricultural organization whose purpose is to represent, protect, and enhance the business, economic, social, and educational interests of our members located throughout the state of michigan.
See schedule oustelecom exists to ensure members can compete, grow and thrive to build a world where families, enterprises and communities are connected through the power of broadband.our member companies have committed a considerable…
Mifma supports the viability of all community-driven marketplaces so that they can connect all consumers to local farms and businesses.
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.…
Freedom, equality, and justicethe bill of rights declared that we have rights and liberties that the government shouldn't interfere with. rights like the freedom of speech and our right to a speedy trial that are the cornerstone of our…
The minnesota chamber of commerce proactively leads the business community statewide to: advance pro-business, responsible minnesota public policy that creates jobs and grows the econony; provde member services to address evolving business…
The fsmb serves as the voice for state medical boards, supporting them through education, assessment, research and advocacy while providing services and initiatives that promote patient safety, quality health care and regulatory best…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Every Mother Counts and the most unlike its peers is Manchester Area Historical Society Inc. 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 34 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) — 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 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.
18 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. 18 of the 28 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 University of Michigan ↗
- Who funds DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds GLEANERS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK OF SOUTHEASTERN MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK OF ORANGE COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds Presbyterian Villages of Michigan ↗
- Who funds THE VILLAGE CLUB FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM ↗
- Who funds EVERY MOTHER COUNTS ↗
- Who funds WILLIAM J BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds PRO PUBLICA INC ↗
- Who funds PEN AMERICAN CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds OAKLAND HOPE ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED CEREBRAL PALSY INC ↗
- Who funds AUTISM ALLIANCE OF MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds Electronic Frontier Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds MATRIX THEATRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds MANCHESTER AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY 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: Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 McKeen 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 McKeen Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The McKeen 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.