· Private foundation
The Shaw & Betty Walker 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k3 grants · $15k
- $10k–50k44 grants · $735k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $450k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GRAND TRAVERSE REGIONAL LAND CONSERVANCY | $150,000 |
| AMERICA FIRST LEGAL | $100,000 |
| MICHIGAN TECH UNIVERSITY | $100,000 |
| NORTHWOODS MUSIC COLLABORATIVE | $50,000 |
| HOPE COLLEGE | $50,000 |
| GREAT LAKES OUTDOORS FOUNDATION | $40,000 |
| THE FOOD GROUP | $30,000 |
| SHERIDAN AREA SEARCH AND RESCUE | $30,000 |
| AGEWELL SVS MEALS ON WHEELS | $30,000 |
| AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY | $30,000 |
| SHERIDAN COMMUNITY LAND TRUST | $30,000 |
| SHERIDAN MEMORIAL HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $30,000 |
| HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF EASTERN BIGHORNS | $30,000 |
| PRESERVE HICKORY | $25,000 |
| THE HUB ON SMITH (FORMERLY SNR CTZN COUNCIL) | $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 (FY21–25, $235k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 23% 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.
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.
61 repeat relationships — 43 still active in FY2025, 18 since wound down; 9 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, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $150k 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
- GTGRAND TRAVERSE REGIONAL LAND CONSERVANCY2× · 2024–2025 · $350k · revenue +139%
- NMNORTHWOODS MUSIC COLLABORATIVE INC5× · 2021–2025 · $240k · revenue +136% · 58% of their budget
- SCSHERIDAN COMMUNITY LAND TRUST5× · 2021–2025 · $173k · revenue +61%
Funded once
- MHMUNSON HEALTHCARE FOUNDATIONSone grant, 2021 · $75k · revenue +24%
- MMMuskegon Museum of Artone grant, 2021 · $25k
- DCDISCOVERY CENTER GREAT LAKESgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $25k · revenue +978%
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.
Safeguard southern michigan's land and water to support diverse, resilient, and thriving communities - forever
Protecting life. sharing the truth. empowering people to make healthy life choices
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…
Lead sheboygan county's efforts to increase the food security of its residents by distributing healthy emergency food and fostering innovative partnerships.
To conserve the land, water and scenic character of leelanau county, and to provide educational programs to develop an understanding and appreciation of leelanau county's natural heritage.
Provide free legal assistance to indigent and low income persons
To conserve, sustain, and connect natural areas, land, and waters that make the places we live special
The nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.
To stimulate and sustain a vibrant regional economy by facilitating economic growth and prosperity.
To promote business and economic development for eight towns in southwest michigan.
To advance pharmacy through education, practice innovation and research focused on patient care, for the improvement and promotion of public health and public education.
The corporation is organized and shall be operated exclusively for charitable, educational and scientific purposes by conducting or supporting activites exclusively for the benefit of, to perform the functions of, or to carry out the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Alliance for the Great Lakes and the most unlike its peers is Sheridan Pilots Association 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 20 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 27% startups (under 5 years old) — 8% of your grantees by number, and just 2% 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.
44 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. 44 of the 92 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 GRAND TRAVERSE REGIONAL LAND CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds NORTHWOODS MUSIC COLLABORATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds SHERIDAN COUNTY MEMORIAL HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SHERIDAN COMMUNITY LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds America First Legal Foundation ↗
- Who funds PRESERVE HICKORY ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF THE EASTERN BIGHORNS INC ↗
- Who funds WINGS OF MERCY INC ↗
- Who funds THE FOOD GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds HOPE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds TRAVERSE CITY CENTRAL ATHLETIC BOOSTERS ↗
- Who funds BLOOD CANCER UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds JOB CREATORS NETWORK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MUNSON HEALTHCARE FOUNDATIONS ↗
- Who funds KEWEENAW LAND TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES ↗
- Who funds SHERIDAN COMMUNITY TENNIS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds DOG & CAT SHELTER INC ↗
- Who funds ADVOCACY & RESOURCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds ANTELOPE BUTTE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds COMPASS CENTER FOR FAMILIES ↗
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: Homer A Scott & Mildred S Scott Foundation · Wyoming Community Foundation · First Interstate BancSystem Foundation Inc · Homer A Jr & Janet Scott Family Foundation · Dan & Jeanne Scott Family Foundation · Chandler H Kibbee and Mercedes K Kibbee Foundation for Children · Vernon & Rowena Griffith Foundation · Muriel and Seymour Thickman Family Foundation · Joe and Arlene Watt Foundation Inc · The Seidler Foundation · The Roberts Family Foundation · Bf & Rose H Perkins 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 Shaw & Betty Walker 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 Shaw & Betty Walker Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Shaw & Betty Walker 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.