· Private foundation
Wattles Family 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.
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 · FY2025
- Under $10k11 grants · $45k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $128k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHEFF THERAPEUTIC RIDING CENTER | $50,000 |
| KALAMAZOO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $39,000 |
| KALAMAZOO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $39,000 |
| KALAMAZOO LOAVES & FISHES | $25,000 |
| FAMILY & CHILDREN SERVICES | $15,000 |
| INTL SOCIETY CHILD ABUSE NELGECT | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $6,000 |
| KVCC FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| STONELEIGH BURHAM SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| BRONSON HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| PRETTY LAKE CAMP | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $4,000 |
| KALAMAZOO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $4,000 |
| PIKES PEAK HABITAT HUMANITY | $3,000 |
| DREAM OF KALAMAZOO FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
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 (FY17–25, $90k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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.
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 +17% since the first grant, against +6% for the ones you funded once.
18 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 5 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, 33% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $94k 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
FAMILY & CHILDREN SERVICES INC3× · 2023–2025 · $58k · revenue +9%
Sherman Lake YMCA Outdoor Center2× · 2020–2023 · $30k · revenue +60%- KCKalamazoo Civic Theatre2× · 2023–2024 · $26k · revenue +17%
Funded once
- YOYMCA OF GREATER KALAMAZOOone grant, 2023 · $25k
- KSKALAMAZOO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAone grant, 2019 · $10k · revenue +19%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $5k
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 mission of kalamazoo college is to prepare its graduates to better understand, live sucessfully within, and provide enlightened leadership to a richly diverse and increasingly complex world. as a highly selective, nationally renowened…
The mission of the kalamazoo humane society is to nuture the wellbeing of animals and people in our communities.
Ywca kalamazoo is a member of the ywca usa. the ywca is the oldest and largest, autonomous women's membership organization in the world, dedicated to social justice and to raising the economic status of women, locally and globally. ywca is…
The mission of the kalamazoo foundation for excellence is to support the goals of the city of kalamazoo, fund aspirational investments in the city, and empower kalamazoo residents to achieve the lives they want for themselves and their…
An independent school providing a supportive, challenging and creative academic environment for talented and motivated students to prepare them for life long achievement.
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.…
To protect and promote the well-being of children by providing ongoing support of the charitable mission of the kansas children's service league.
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.…
Kansas wesleyan university is a liberal arts college that promotes and integrates academic excellence, spiritual development, personal well-being, and social responsibility.
Create relationships & experiences that welcome and inspire people to discover, enjoy, value, and care for nature. Kalamazoo Nature Center envisions a resilient community where all people have strong interconnections with the natural world.
At kalamapi'i play school we nurture and heal kids. kalamapi'i is a preschool for kids ages 3-5. learning stems from curiosity. curiosity exists in the presence of physical and emotional safety and from play. of the 70 students we serve,…
To develop and promote programs, funding, etc. for children and families.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Kalamazoo Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is University of Michigan. 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 50 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 5% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
19 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. 19 of the 34 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 KALAMAZOO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FAMILY & CHILDREN SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds CHEFF THERAPEUTIC RIDING CENTER ↗
- Who funds Sherman Lake YMCA Outdoor Center ↗
- Who funds Kalamazoo Civic Theatre ↗
- Who funds Bronson Health Foundation ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO LOAVES & FISHES INC ↗
- Who funds PRETTY LAKE VACATION CAMP INC ↗
- Who funds DREAM OF KALAMAZOO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHILDFUND INTERNATIONAL USA ↗
- Who funds KALAMAZOO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds STONELEIGH-BURNHAM SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds PIKES PEAK HABITAT FOR HUMANITY ↗
- Who funds University of Michigan ↗
- Who funds WESTERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds EVERY CHILD MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds YMCA of Metuchen ↗
- Who funds HOPE FOR GUATEMALA INC ↗
- Who funds Junior League of Atlanta 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: Kalamazoo Community Foundation · Marvin and Rosalie Okun Foundation · Tyler-Little Family Foundation · Dorothy U Dalton Foundation Inc · Harold and Grace Upjohn Foundation · Preston S and Barbara J Parish Foundation · The Burdick-Thorne Foundation · Suzanne Upjohn Delano Parish Foundation · Irving S Gilmore Foundation · John E Fetzer Institute Inc · Ws & Lois Vandalson Foundation · Jim Gilmore Jr 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 Wattles Family 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 Wattles Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Wattles Family 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.