· Public charity
The Vinnie Johnson Foundation
THE VINNIE JOHNSON FOUNDATION is organized exclusively for the purpose of receiving and administering funds and assets for charitable and educational purposes.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2022.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2022
- $10k–50k2 grants · $30k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $150k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MATH CORPS | $50,000 |
| BING YOUTH INSTITUTE | $50,000 |
| CAMP CAVELL | $50,000 |
| THE CHILDREN'S CENTER | $20,000 |
| BEAT THE STREETS | $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 (FY17–22, $95k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 21% 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.
7 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2022, 3 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2022 (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 FY2022, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $20k 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
- CCCAMP CAVELL CONSERVANCY5× · 2017–2022 · $250k · revenue -17%
- CSCORNERSTONE SCHOOLS ASSOCIATION3× · 2017–2019 · $225k · revenue -84%
- PSPROMISE SCHOOLS4× · 2017–2021 · $175k · revenue -100%
Funded once
- CECITIZEN EDUCATION FUND INCone grant, 2019 · $25k · revenue -77%
- TETHE EINSTEIN METHOD FKA EINSTEIN EDUCATION ECOSYSTEM INCone grant, 2017 · $25k · revenue +17%
- SOSQUARE ONE EDUCATION NETWORKgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $5k · revenue +101%
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.
Mentorship of young Black men
Spark youth is an on-campus afterschool program focused on helping students with academic achievement, providing enrichment activities and building character/social development.
To provide educational mentorship
Project exploration creates transformative learning opportunities for youth underrepresented in the sciences -- particularly students of color and girls -- by equipping them with the skills, practices, and mindset needed for a lifelong…
The mission of Unleash the Brilliance is to reduce at-risk behaviors, increase school attendance, and increase graduation rates. We believe that by empowering youth to make positive decisions, we can reduce the number of youth that get…
We are committed to preparing youth for success by uniting sports with academic growth and character development. our mission is to help every student make the smart play - on the field, in the classroom, and in life.
Building Bridges Education (BBE) is a non-profit organization at the forefront of creating transformative, high-impact programming. BBE is committed to equity-driven initiatives that empower students to embark on journeys of…
CEC works with diverse stakeholders across Detroit to develop critical resources and system-level solutions that address common challenges faced by Detroit families in accessing quality education.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Reach Youth Programs and the most unlike its peers is Stand Together Day. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
12 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.
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 CAMP CAVELL CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds CORNERSTONE SCHOOLS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds PROMISE SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds Math Corps ↗
- Who funds BING YOUTH INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds STAND TOGETHER DAY ↗
- Who funds BEAT THE STREETS DETROIT INC ↗
- Who funds CITIZEN EDUCATION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds THE EINSTEIN METHOD FKA EINSTEIN EDUCATION ECOSYSTEM INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDRENS CENTER OF WAYNE COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds SQUARE ONE EDUCATION NETWORK ↗
- Who funds REACH YOUTH PROGRAMS ↗
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: Dte Energy Foundation · United Way for Southeastern Michigan · Ford Philanthropy · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation 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 Vinnie Johnson 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 Vinnie Johnson Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Vinnie Johnson 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.