· Public charity
The Right Place Inc
The right place is the economic development organization that drives current and long-term economic prosperity in west michigan.
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 $10k2 grants · $18k
- $10k–50k22 grants · $502k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $547k
- $250k+2 grants · $24M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GOTION INC | $23,670,874 |
| VILLAGE OF SHELBY | $652,500 |
| CITY OF CEDAR SPRINGS | $125,000 |
| S J KINGMA & ASSOCIATES LLC | $110,000 |
| VIBRANT FUTURES | $109,653 |
| MECOSTA COUNTY ROAD COMMISSION | $96,000 |
| SHELBY TOWNSHIP | $56,000 |
| FISHBECK | $50,365 |
| MIDWEST DEMOLITION AND DISMANTLING LLC | $35,000 |
| TNR MACHINE | $25,000 |
| KNITIT | $25,000 |
| SYMBIOTE INC | $25,000 |
| KENT QUALITY FOODS INC | $25,000 |
| PLASCORE INC | $25,000 |
| HEMCO GAGE | $25,000 |
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, $366k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% 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.
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 +67% since the first grant, against +45% for the ones you funded once.
90 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2024, 86 since wound down; 28 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, 1% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $25M 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
- BLBLUE LAKE FINE ARTS CAMP2× · 2020–2021 · $32k · revenue +303%
- WMWyoming Moose Lodge 7632× · 2020–2021 · $30k · revenue +67%
- IFIONIA FREE FAIR ASSOCIATION2× · 2020–2021 · $20k · revenue +696%
Funded once
- MCMECOSTA COUNTY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATIONone grant, 2023 · $543k · revenue -81% · 87% of their budget
- MCMONTCALM COMMUNITY COLLEGEone grant, 2022 · $49k
- WSWest Shore Community Collegeone grant, 2022 · $45k
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 present west michigan audiences with high quality broadway productions and to provide student arts education programs, enriching the community through professional performing arts, as well as to expand the diversity of theatre in the…
The Center's mission is to inspire, entertain, educate, and serve all in Northern Michigan year-round by presenting exceptional experiences across the full spectrum of the performing arts and offering impactful educational opportunities.
To advance tourism, assist in new and existing business development and promote economic, professional, cultural and civic interests in the iowa great lakes area.
To promote lenawee county as a destination providing contemporary amenities to transient guests in a historical and cultural setting for the economic benefit of the community.
Facilitate economic opportunity, business success, community engagement, prosperity, and quality of life for rural western iowa
The west coast chamber exists to be a catalyst for business growth and development, a convener of leaders and influencers, and a champion for a thriving community.
Inspire awareness, appreciation and passion for michigan's history and stories, culture and environment through the arts.
A voice of the building industry in Michigan. The primary purpose is to positively influence the legislative, regulatory and legal issues that affect the industry.
Programs for local youth
A member driven organization committed to providing quality professional park and recreation programs and services with fiscal integrity and progressive leadership to michigans recreation and parks trade.
The right place is the economic development organization that drives current and long-term economic prosperity in west michigan.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Hispanic Center of Western Michigan Inc and the most unlike its peers is Genevieve and Donald S Gilmore Fdn. 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 35 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) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.2% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
53 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 53 of the 1,211 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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.
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: Start Garden Inc · Steelcase Foundation · Grand Rapids Community Foundation · Douglas & Maria Devos Foundation · Greater Grand Rapids Chamber Foundation · Corewell Health Group Return · Krw Foundation · The Mercantile Bank Foundation · Frey Foundation · The Wege Foundation · Heart of West Michigan United Way · Small Business Association of Michigan
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 Right Place Inc 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.