· Public charity
United Way of the Lakeshore
Our mission is to inspire change and build thriving communities.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 47 grants below total $1,202,163 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $1,240,147 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $37,984 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 · FY2024
- Under $10k17 grants · $118k
- $10k–50k24 grants · $540k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $545k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DOLLY PARTON IMAGINATION LIBRARY | $148,179 |
| ACSET MICHIGAN WORKS | $110,000 |
| EVERY WOMANS PLACE INC | $106,696 |
| TRUE NORTH COMMUNITY SERVICES | $70,228 |
| NEWAYGO COUNTY COMMISSION ON AGING | $60,014 |
| YOUTH SOLUTIONS | $50,000 |
| LEGAL AID OF WESTERN MI | $49,079 |
| CHILD ABUSE COUNCIL | $47,891 |
| CALL 211 | $45,642 |
| READ MUSKEGON | $35,689 |
| MISSION FOR AREA PEOPLE | $34,283 |
| MEDIATION AND RESTORATIVE SERVICES | $33,676 |
| LAKE COUNTY MEALS ON WHEELS | $30,007 |
| ORCHARD VIEW SCHOOL | $28,500 |
| CATHOLIC CHARITIES | $22,702 |
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 (FY17–24, $2.3M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 96% 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 +40% since the first grant, against +14% for the ones you funded once.
60 repeat relationships — 41 still active in FY2024, 19 since wound down; 6 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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $66k 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
- EWEVERY WOMAN'S PLACE INC8× · 2017–2024 · $841k · revenue +23%
BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF THE MUSKEGON LAKESHORE8× · 2017–2024 · $573k · revenue +299%
THE DOLLYWOOD FOUNDATION5× · 2017–2022 · $498k · revenue +190%
Funded once
- DPDOLLY PARTONS IMAGINATION LIBRARY GTRgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $132k · revenue +141%
- AHACCESS HEALTHgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $70k · revenue +139%
- WLWHITE LAKE COMMUNITY EDUCATIONone grant, 2019 · $24k
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.
Mid michigan community action guides local residents on the path to self-sufficiency through empowerment, education and community enrichment.
To minister to the physical, emotional and spirtual needs of people within the muskegon area, without regard to race, creed, color or religious affiliation.
Muskegon family care is a federally qualified health center with medical and dental clinics reaching out to uninsured and underinsured patients in muskegon county.
To provide housing and case management services for the homeless and mentally ill within the community.
To provide Northeast Michigan with referrals and information to assist with essential needs.
Provide free legal assistance to indigent and low income persons
Social welfare and issue advocacy
Through internal expertise, external partnerships, and advocacy, the area agency on aging of western michigan provides older adults, adults with disabilities, and their caregivers equitable access to services that promote independence and…
Map partners with veterans and people who have disabilities in support of their self-directed transformation to self-sufficiency.
We advance the missions of michigan nonprofit organizations that serve low income individuals and communities through pro bono and low cost legal and other professional services, organizational development, and trusted guidance.
To assist people with low or moderate income to obtain safe and affordable housing
To provide high quality community-oriented, patient-centered health services for all.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Love Inc of Muskegon County and the most unlike its peers is Newaygo County Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. 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 31 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 6% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 11% 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, 2017–2025.
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. 53 of the 96 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 EVERY WOMAN'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF THE MUSKEGON LAKESHORE ↗
- Who funds THE DOLLYWOOD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MISSION FOR AREA PEOPLE ↗
- Who funds BETHANY HOUSING MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds Legal Aid of Western Michigan ↗
- Who funds CHILD ABUSE COUNCIL OF MUSKEGON COUNTY ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY ACCESS LINE OF THE LAKESHORE 211 ↗
- Who funds MEDIATION & RESTORATIVE SERVICES ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds READ MUSKEGON ↗
- Who funds GOODWILL INDUSTRIES OF WEST MICHIGAN INC ↗
- Who funds TRUENORTH COMMUNITY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds AGEWELL SERVICES OF WEST MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds THE ARC MUSKEGON ↗
- Who funds DOLLY PARTONS IMAGINATION LIBRARY GTR ↗
- Who funds KINEXUS YOUTH SOLUTIONS ↗
- Who funds PATHFINDERS OF MUSKEGON ↗
- Who funds LOVE INC OF MUSKEGON COUNTY ↗
- Who funds THE ARBOR CIRCLE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF MASON COUNTY ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITIES OVERCOMING VIOLENT ENCO ↗
- Who funds MUSKEGON COMMUNITY HEALTH PROJECT ↗
- Who funds MUSKEGON YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE HOPE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds ACCESS HEALTH ↗
- Who funds HACKLEY LIFE COUNSELING ↗
- Who funds VOLUNTEER FOR DENTAL ↗
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 · Fremont Area Community Foundation · Grand Haven Area Community Foundation Inc · Muskegon Community Health Project · Consumers Energy Foundation · Mercy Health Partners · Michigan Health Endowment Fund · Women's Division Chamber of Commerce · Grand Rapids Community Foundation · Dte Energy Foundation · Feeding America West Michigan · The Gerber 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 the Lakeshore 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.