· Public charity
United Way of Mason County
To raise funds to assist other non-profit agencies.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2018.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 13 grants below total $118,115 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $123,333 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $5,218 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2018
- Under $10k10 grants · $69k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $49k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| STAIRCASE - YOUTH OUTREACH | $23,647 |
| CATHOLIC CHARITIES | $15,584 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| OAKTREE ACADEMY | $9,831 |
| ARC-WSC-DISASTER SERVICES | $9,448 |
| SALVATION ARMY - EMERGENCY ASSIST | $9,040 |
| COVE - WOMAN'S SHELTER | $6,474 |
| LUDINGTON AREA SCHOOLS - OJ DEJON | $6,000 |
| HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | $5,952 |
| ASSOC FOR THE BLIND-VISION REHAB | $5,901 |
| SCOTTVILLE SENIOR CENTER - MED TRAN | $5,799 |
| J & J MISSION - WOMEN'S JERICHO HOU | $5,383 |
| MCC SR MEALS-DELIVERED SENIOR MEALS | $5,056 |
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 (FY17–18, $79k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
9 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2018, 0 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2018 (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 FY2018, 81% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $22k 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
- SYSTAIRCASE YOUTH SERVICES INC2× · 2017–2018 · $47k · revenue +121%
- CCCATHOLIC CHARITIES WEST MICHIGAN2× · 2017–2018 · $31k · revenue +9%
- OAOAKTREE ACADEMY INC2× · 2017–2018 · $20k · revenue +129%
Funded once
- LALUDINGTON AREA SCHOOLS - OJ DEJONone grant, 2017 · $6k
- HFHABITAT FOR HUMANITYgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $6k · revenue +69%
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 assist people with low or moderate income to obtain safe and affordable housing
To eliminate sub-standard housing and homelessness from lapeer county.
To help provide safe, accessible, and affordable housing in Northwest Michigan.
Our mission is to assist our affiliates to increase capacity to build simple decent homes in partnership with people in need in the State of Michigan.
Lighthouse mi endeavors to build equitable communities and alleviate poverty in partnership with and in service to individuals, families, and organizations.
Seeking to put God's love into action, Habitat for Humanity of Oakland County brings people together to build homes, communities and hope.
To promote a violence free atmosphere from domestic and sexual violence in which survivors can recognize their options to have the opportunity to continue living violence free and regain their sense of self-worth; to educate and raise…
The purpose of the oceana county housing commission nonprofit corporation is to provide decent, safe, affordable, and sanitary housing opportunities for low and moderate income residents of oceana county, michigan. the oceana county…
The House of Hope is dedicated to serving individuals, families, and our community by providing a hand up into a hope-filled future.
The mission of Montcalm County Habitat for Humanity is to improve lives in our community by building safe and affordable housing in partnership with Gods people.
A nonprofit ecumenical christian housing ministry dedicated to eleminating substandard housing and homelessness worldwide and to making adequate, affordable shelter a matter of conscience and action.
Community & home supports, inc. was founded to help people and communities address poverty and homelessness. we strive to fulfill our purpose by developing, leading, and participating in collaborative and innovative efforts that support…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Staircase Youth Services Inc and the most unlike its peers is J & J Mission of Mason County. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
8 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. 8 of the 14 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 STAIRCASE YOUTH SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC CHARITIES WEST MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds OAKTREE ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITIES OVERCOMING VIOLENT ENCO ↗
- Who funds ASSOCIATION FOR THE BLIND AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED ↗
- Who funds J & J MISSION OF MASON COUNTY ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY ↗
- Who funds HOME TEAM HOUSING ↗
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: Community Foundation for Muskegon County · Pennies From Heaven Foundation · 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 United Way of Mason County 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 United Way of Mason County?
Find your warmest path to United Way of Mason County 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.