· Private foundation
Vaughan 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
100% of Vaughan Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 1 organization directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2024, the last year Vaughan Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 33 organizations, $2M. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
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 · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k17 grants · $550k
- $50k–250k23 grants · $1.7M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UMRC HERITAGE FOUND ANNUAL FUND | $200,000 |
| THE HEAT & WARMTH FUND | $150,000 |
| SHELTER ASSOCIATION OF WASHTENAW | $125,000 |
| ST JOSEPH MERCY HEALTH SYSTEM | $100,000 |
| WASHTENAW LITERACY | $80,000 |
| MICHIGAN HUMANE SOCIETY | $70,000 |
| HORSES HAVEN | $70,000 |
| HUMANE SOCIETY OF HURON VALLEY | $70,000 |
| ANN ARBOR HANDS ON MUSEUM | $70,000 |
| ANN ARBOR TEEN CENTER | $65,000 |
| PEACE NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER | $60,000 |
| FISHER HOUSE MICHIGAN | $60,000 |
| MICHIGAN THEATRE FOUNDATI | $60,000 |
| LEADER DOGS FOR THE BLIND | $60,000 |
| PACKARD HEALTH CENTER | $60,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $1.3M) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 56% 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.
49 repeat relationships — 41 still active in FY2024, 8 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call). Read against FY2024, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 60% 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
- SASHELTER ASSOCIATION OF WASHTENAW COUNTY8× · 2017–2024 · $910k · revenue +149%
- THTRINITY HEALTH - MICHIGAN8× · 2017–2024 · $800k · revenue +31%
- WLWASHTENAW LITERACY8× · 2017–2024 · $585k · revenue +56%
Funded once
- MFMICHIGAN FRIENDS CENTER INCone grant, 2017 · $2k
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.
Humane society of southwestern michigan exists to provide shelter and care for sick, homeless and unwanted animals. in addition, the organization provides adoption services for the animals in its care.
To maintain and operate a hospital, ambulance and veterinary services for the care of animals. the maintenance and operation of kennels and suitable chambers for the humane destruction of wounded animals.
The mission of the michigan animal rescue league is to provide the highest quality of life to dogs and cats through rescue, medical care, socialization and behavioral support, short- and long-term sanctuary, adoption, and community…
Our mission is to promote the humane treatment and responsible care of animals in west michigan through education, example, placement and protection.
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…
Animal shelter - provide a safe haven for animals without homes.
Our mission is to provide an adoption-friendly animal shelter that will unify the community toward a common goal of responsible animal treatment and increased animal adoptions to design and incorporate new education and public programs…
Provide care for homeless/abused animals
To enhance the community by giving animals, and the people who love them, a second chance.
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.
Auburn valley humane society enriches the lives of companion animals and people through animal sheltering, programs, services and community engagement
Animal care sanctuary's lifesaving mission as a no kill organization envisions a community that promotes turning compassion into action for companion animals by: 1.) adopting healthy pet companions into loving homes. 2.) promoting the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Michigan Humane Society and the most unlike its peers is St Louis Center. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 42 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 17% 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 52 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 ANN ARBOR AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE HEAT AND WARMTH FUND ↗
- Who funds SHELTER ASSOCIATION OF WASHTENAW COUNTY ↗
- Who funds TRINITY HEALTH - MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds WASHTENAW LITERACY ↗
- Who funds HORSES' HAVEN ↗
- Who funds Peace Neighborhood Center ↗
- Who funds FISHER HOUSE MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds ANN ARBOR HANDS-ON MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY MUSICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF HURON VALLEY ↗
- Who funds CHEBOYGAN COUNTY HUMANE SOC ↗
- Who funds CASCADES HUMANE SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds Domestic Violence Project ↗
- Who funds FOOD GATHERERS ↗
- Who funds Therapeutic Riding Inc ↗
- Who funds GREAT LAKES RABBIT SANCTUARY INC ↗
- Who funds Paws With A Cause ↗
- Who funds DETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds BIRD CENTER OF MICHIGAN INC ↗
- Who funds ST LOUIS CENTER ↗
- Who funds ELE'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds LEADER DOGS FOR THE BLIND ↗
- Who funds GIRLS GROUP ↗
- Who funds Ann Arbor Summer Festival Inc ↗
- Who funds Neutral Zone ↗
- Who funds LEGACY LAND CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds FAIR FOOD NETWORK INC ↗
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: Duffy Foundation · Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation · United Way of Washtenaw County · Dte Energy Foundation · James a and Faith Knight Foundation · Harry a and Margaret D Towsley Foundation · Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · The Martin Family Foundation · THE MOSAIC FOUNDATION (Of R & P Heydon) · United Way for Southeastern Michigan · Charles Stewart Mott Foundation · Robert E & Ann R Meredith 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 Vaughan 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 Vaughan Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Vaughan 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.