· Public charity
We the People MI
To organize, train, and educate communities throughout Michigan to promote racial and economic justice; facilitate relationships between community leaders from rural, suburban, and urban communities across Michigan and strengthen democratic practices.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2021–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $50k–250k1 grant · $150k
- $250k+1 grant · $300k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Miigwech Inc | $300,000 |
| Michigan Voices | $150,000 |
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 (FY21–21, $40k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 15%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +247% since the first grant, against +10% for the ones you funded once.
3 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
MICHIGAN VOICES2× · 2023–2024 · $450k · revenue +247%- MIMIIGWECH INC2× · 2023–2024 · $450k · 29% of their budget
- 4F482 FORWARD2× · 2021–2022 · $140k · revenue +94%
Funded once
- MJMOTHERING JUSTICEgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $120k · revenue +129%
- MUMICHIGAN UNITEDone grant, 2022 · $60k
- MEMICHIGAN ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE COALITIONone grant, 2022 · $60k · revenue +10%
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 guide communities toward being more energy efficient and sustainable through our expertise, our programs, and our effect on decision makers, business leaders, and residents of michigan.
Michigan Liberation is dedicated to the leadership development of community members and creation of effective campaigns to advance racial, gender and economic justice in Michigan
Informing and educating the public and decision makers about environmental issues.
To empower students in Michigan's higher education institutions to take leadership in their community and increase their participation in the democratic process. We strengthen students' voices in developing and advocating for legislation…
Mid michigan community action guides local residents on the path to self-sufficiency through empowerment, education and community enrichment.
Provide affordable or free mediation services and conflict resolution trainings to support the transforming of our society into a collaborative and problem-solving one.
To improve the overall business and jobs climate in michigan
To accelerate the transition to clean transportation in michigan. we advocate for the suite of alternative fuels including biofuels, hydrogen, propane, natural gas, and electric vehicles.
To promote job retention and creation in the State of Michigan
To be a source of new ideas on how michigan's people, enterprises, and communities can succeed in the information age.
Be and create stewards for the water environment of michigan. provide high quality education for michigan's water professionals. educate and inform policy makers and the general public. promote scientifically sound environmental practices…
The michigan humanities council connects people and communities by fostering and creating quality cultural programs
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Michigan Voices and the most unlike its peers is 482 Forward. 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, 2017–2024.
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 2017–2024, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 8 of the 9 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.
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: New Venture Fund · Tides Foundation · Promote the Vote Fund Inc · The Fred & Barbara Erb Family Foundation · Windward Fund · Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 We the People MI 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 We the People MI?
Find your warmest path to We the People MI 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.