· Private foundation
Dragonfly Fund
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 FY2022–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k7 grants · $34k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $110k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $100k
- $250k+2 grants · $2.3M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LITTLE TRAVERSE CONSERVANCY INC | $2,000,000 |
| HARBOR SPRINGS LYRIC THEATRE | $250,000 |
| CHILDRENS HEALING CENTER | $100,000 |
| THE VANDENBERG COALITION | $40,000 |
| AMERICAN WRITERS MUSEUM FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| LITERACY CENTER OF WEST MICHIGAN | $25,000 |
| CALVIN COOLIDGE PRESIDENTIAL FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| BOYNE CITY PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $10,000 |
| HARBOR BEACH UNITED COMMUNITY FUND | $6,000 |
| US SUPREME COURT HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $5,000 |
| HARBOR SPRINGS AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $5,000 |
| ACTON INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF RELIGION AND LIBERTY | $5,000 |
| LAND CONSERVANCY OF WEST MICHIGAN | $5,000 |
| BIOGRAPHERS INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| FRIENDS OF THE BOYNE DISTRICT LIBRARY | $3,250 |
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 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 68% 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.
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +67% since the first grant, against +2% for the ones you funded once.
23 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 1 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, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $250k 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
- LTLittle Traverse Conservancy Inc4× · 2022–2025 · $3.2M · revenue +10%
- NCNATIONAL CONSTITUTION CENTER3× · 2022–2024 · $125k · revenue +76%
- WSWRITERS SERIES OF TRAVERSE CITY2× · 2022–2024 · $93k · revenue +113%
Funded once
- CCCHICAGO COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2024 · $10M
- LTLYRIC THEATREone grant, 2023 · $100k
- BHBOYNE HERITAGE CENTERone grant, 2023 · $60k
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 Detroit Historical Society tells Detroit's stories and why they matter through its exhibits, programs, outreach, and the preservation and dissemination of its artifacts and collections.
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.
Inspire awareness, appreciation and passion for michigan's history and stories, culture and environment through the arts.
Ann arbor hands-on museum creates moments of discovery that inspire curiosity, exploration and respect for stem and the natural world. together with the leslie science & nature center, we envision a world where curiosity today leads to…
The nmu foundation will establish and foster relationships to generate resources that benefit the strategic goals of northern michigan university.
The mission of the michigan science center is to inspire curious minds of all ages to discover, explore and appreciate science, technology, engineering and math in a creative, dynamic learning environment.
The michigan humanities council connects people and communities by fostering and creating quality cultural programs
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.…
For all state residents, diverse civic stakeholders and philanthropy, the center for michigan (the center) and its nonprofit newsrooms - bridge michigan and bridgedetroit - make michigan better through high-quality, nonpartisan journalism…
To permanently protect and improve natural environments in Mid-Michigan by leading and inspiring actions that conserve vital habitats and waterways for the benefit of our entire community.
The grpm exists to be a living monument of artifacts, ideas and stories told through exhibitions, events, and educational programming designed to inspire, motivate and celebrate our human bond. we enrich the lives of our community through…
To promote conditions favorable to job creation and business success in michigan.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is National Constitution Center and the most unlike its peers is Biographers International Organization. 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 33 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
35 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. 35 of the 48 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 Little Traverse Conservancy Inc ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HEALING CENTER ↗
- Who funds HARBOR SPRINGS LYRIC THEATRE ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL CONSTITUTION CENTER ↗
- Who funds WRITERS SERIES OF TRAVERSE CITY ↗
- Who funds THE VANDENBERG COALITION INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST MI HABITAT FOR HUMANITY ↗
- Who funds Literacy Center of West Michigan ↗
- Who funds BOYNE HERITAGE CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN WRITERS MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds GRAND RAPIDS BALLET ↗
- Who funds PETOSKEY-HARBOR SPRINGS AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Center for US Global Leadership ↗
- Who funds Historical Society of Michigan ↗
- Who funds CALVIN COOLIDGE PRESIDENTIAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GRAND RAPIDS CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds THE DIATRIBE INC ↗
- Who funds IRON LIGHT LABS ↗
- Who funds Biographers International Organization ↗
- Who funds BE CAFE ↗
- Who funds HARBOR BEACH UNITED COMMUNITY FUND ↗
- Who funds GERALD R FORD PRESIDENTIAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE SUPREME COURT HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Land Conservancy of West Michigan ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ARCHIVES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds INSIDEOUT LITERARY ARTS PROJECT ↗
- Who funds FANS OF VALLEY FIELD ↗
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: The Meijer Foundation · Frey Foundation · Grand Rapids Community Foundation · Steve & Amy Van Andel Foundation · Consumers Energy Foundation · Daniel & Pamella Devos Foundation · WK Kellogg Foundation · The Meijer Foundation · The David and Carol Van Andel Family Foundation · Ufp Industries Foundation · Douglas & Maria Devos Foundation · Dick and Betsy Devos Family 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 Dragonfly Fund 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.
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- Calvin Coolidge Presidential Foundation Inc — 0% of income from government
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 Dragonfly Fund?
Find your warmest path to Dragonfly Fund 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.