· Private foundation
The Meyers Mueller Family 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 FY2022–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BRIDLE UP HOPE | $1,000 |
| ARIZONA TRAIL ASSOCIATION | $1,000 |
| BOYD RANCH | $1,000 |
| FATHER DYER UNITED METHODIST CHURCH | $1,000 |
| AERC TRAILS FUND | $1,000 |
| INTERLOCHEN CENTER FOR THE ARTS | $1,000 |
| ARISE | $500 |
| WOMEN'S RESOURCE CENTER | $500 |
| SECOND CHANCE FOR HOMELESS PETS | $500 |
| SAFE HARBOR SHELTER OF GRAND TRAVERSE | $500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $500 |
| GROW BENZIE | $500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $500 |
| 5 LOAVES 2 FISH NMI | $500 |
| MICHIGAN HORSE COUNCIL | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY22–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 69% of your 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.
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 +65% since the first grant, against +16% for the ones you funded once.
6 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down; 17 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, 16% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $11k 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
- ATARIZONA TRAIL ASSOCIATION2× · 2023–2025 · $1k · revenue +25%
- GBGROW BENZIE INC3× · 2022–2025 · $800 · revenue +48%
- PBPOWER BOOK BAGS2× · 2022–2023 · $300 · revenue +65%
Funded once
- SLST LOUIS COUNTY PARKS AND RECREATIONone grant, 2024 · $3k
- DCDESERT CABALLEROS WESTERN MUSEUMone grant, 2024 · $3k · revenue 0%
- AEAMERICAN ENDURANCE RIDE CONFERENCEone grant, 2023 · $250 · revenue -28%
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.
To shelter and find forever homes for homeless dogs and cats.
Friends of michigan animals rescue's mission is to protect animals and residents by promoting a safe and healthy environment for all.
Animal shelter - provide a safe haven for animals without homes.
To harness the healing power of horses to improve lives.
Our mission is to promote the humane treatment and responsible care of animals in west michigan through education, example, placement and protection.
Our mission is to save the lives of animals while enriching the lives of humans.
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…
Humane society of southwestern michigan exists to provide shelter and care for sick, homeless and unwanted animals. in addition, the organization provides adoption services for the animals in its care.
The mission of Manistee County Humane Society is to provide shelter for homeless pets and place them in a permanent home. The organization seeks to educate the community and work through a school outreach program on the subject of pet care…
Rescue & find homes for cats; spay, nueter and adopt out as many cats as possible. Provice foster care homes for unadopted. Provide Vet care. Educate the public about over population available programs.
The mission of the michigan animal rescue league is to provide the highest quality of life to dogs and cats through rescue, medical care, socialization and behavioral support, short- and long-term sanctuary, adoption, and community…
Our mission is to provide an adoption-friendly animal shelter that will unify the community toward a common goal of responsible animal treatment and increased animal adoptions to design and incorporate new education and public programs…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Old Town Playhouse Inc and the most unlike its peers is 5LOAVES2FISHNMI. 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 22 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 28% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 7% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
19 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. 19 of the 34 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 DESERT CABALLEROS WESTERN MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds ARIZONA TRAIL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds BOYD RANCH ↗
- Who funds The Rachel Covey Foundation ↗
- Who funds INTERLOCHEN CENTER FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds GROW BENZIE INC ↗
- Who funds LITTLE TRAVERSE BAY HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds 5LOAVES2FISHNMI ↗
- Who funds SECOND CHANCE FOR HOMELESS PETS ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN HORSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds TRAVERSE BAY CHILDRENS ADVOCACY CENTER ↗
- Who funds POWER BOOK BAGS ↗
- Who funds LEELANAU CHRISTIAN NEIGHBORS INC ↗
- Who funds MICHAEL'S PLACE ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN ENDURANCE RIDE CONFERENCE ↗
- Who funds SAFE HARBOR OF GRAND TRAVERSE INC ↗
- Who funds Watershed Management Group Inc ↗
- Who funds OLD TOWN PLAYHOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds 1 CAT 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 Traverse Regional Community Foundation · Oleson Foundation · The Art and Mary Schmuckal Family Foundation · Rotary Charities of Traverse City · Robet Foundation Inc · The Broad Family Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Meyers Mueller 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 Meyers Mueller Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Meyers Mueller 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.