How much does William & Martha Ford Fund give?

William & Martha Ford Fund reported 65 grants totaling $3,164,400 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 60 and 69 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does William & Martha Ford Fund fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Health (54%), Arts & Culture (19%), Human Services (9%).

Who are William & Martha Ford Fund's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Henry Ford Health System ($3.1M), Christ Church Grosse Pointe ($456k), The Detroit Institute of Arts ($207k).

Does William & Martha Ford Fund fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 14% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does William & Martha Ford Fund accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as William & Martha Ford Fund?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan, DTE Energy Foundation, St Clair Charitable Trust.

Where is William & Martha Ford Fund based?

William & Martha Ford Fund is based in MI.

William & Martha Ford Fund

William & Martha Ford Fund at a glance

· Private foundation

William & Martha Ford Fund

Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$3.2M

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$2.1M

Largest

01What it funds

0196% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Health$3.8MArts & Culture$1.3MHuman Services$612kReligion$472kEducation$281kEnvironment$122kYouth Development$58kRecreation & Sports$51kOther$0

02FY2024 · 65 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k50 grants · $93k
$10k–50k9 grants · $120k
$50k–250k4 grants · $301k
$250k+2 grants · $2.6M

$1,000

Median grant

States reached

$672k

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM	$2,150,000
THE CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION	$500,000
CHRIST CHURCH GROSSE POINTE	$101,000
THE HENRY FORD	$100,000
DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS	$50,000
OUR LADY OF THE ELMS SCHOOL	$50,000
ST JUDE CHILDRENS RESEARCH HOSPITAL	$25,000
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY	$20,000
Individual grant recipient	$15,000
FREEDOM INSTITUTE	$10,000
CATCH	$10,000
HOBE SOUND COMMUNITY CHEST	$10,000
RACQUET UP DETROIT	$10,000
DETROIT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY	$10,000
JUPITER MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION INC	$10,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–24, $70k) land where the poverty rate runs at 19%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 89% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

95%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$6.6M · 95 repeat orgs$353k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +39% since the first grant, against +24% for those funded once.

95 repeat relationships: 57 still active in FY2024, 38 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$6.6M

$320k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+39%

+24%

Still filing today

67%

53%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $33k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

HealthEducationArts & CultureHuman ServicesEnvironmentRecreation & SportsOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

HF
HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM
8× · 2017–2024 · $3.1M · revenue +69%
THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS
8× · 2017–2024 · $207k · revenue +46%
The Trustees of Princeton University
8× · 2017–2024 · $120k · revenue +5%

Funded once

HF
HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM FOUNDATION
one grant, 2022 · $150k · revenue -70%
NC
NATIONAL CENTER FOR LEARNING DISABILITIES INC
one grant, 2019 · $25k · revenue -5%
SC
SCHAAP CENTER FOR PERFORMING ARTS
one grant, 2022 · $25k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

The Greater Detroit Health Transition Company

Gdahc mission: together with our partners, we empower and improve the health and economic vitality of individuals, organizations and communities by catalyzing the power of collaboration. gdahc vision: healthy people. healthy community.…

—

Detroit Regional Chamber

The chamber is the voice for business and works to power the economy for southeast michigan through public policy, advocacy and leading regional economic development and talent initiatives.

—

Delta Dental Fund

Delta dental fund's mission is to improve the oral health of the public and to advance dental science and the dental profession through research and education.

—

United States Naval Institute

Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.

—

Michigan Enviromental Council

Informing and educating the public and decision makers about environmental issues.

Environment

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.

Education

Harvard Club of Washington Dc

To inform and enrich the intellectual lives of 20,000 alumni of harvard university in the washington, dc area and to assist harvard university with respect to applicants and undergraduates from the dc area.

Education

Federation of State Medical Boards of the United States Inc

The fsmb serves as the voice for state medical boards, supporting them through education, assessment, research and advocacy while providing services and initiatives that promote patient safety, quality health care and regulatory best…

Health

University of New Haven

The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…

Education

Mymichigan Health Foundation

The corporation is organized and shall be operated exclusively for charitable, educational and scientific purposes by conducting or supporting activites exclusively for the benefit of, to perform the functions of, or to carry out the…

Health

Stony Brook Internists University Faculty Practice Corporation

Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.

Health

Stony Brook Surgical Associates University Faculty Practice Corporation

Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.

Health

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Children's Hospital of Michigan Foundation; the most unlike its peers is Russ Thomas Scholarship Fund. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

88 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 88 of the 140 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

87/88

Grantees still filing

69/88

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Health$3,618,500Other$2,565,821Arts & Culture$359,950Education$188,200Recreation & Sports$95,500Environment$89,500Philanthropy$75,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Community Foundation for Southeast MichiganMI47.6× affinity24 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan · DTE Energy Foundation · St Clair Charitable Trust · Lynn & Paul Alandt Foundation · Hudson-Webber Foundation · The Ralph C Wilson Jr Foundation · The Kresge Foundation · Ethel and James Flinn Foundation · McGregor Fund · Ford Philanthropy · Alice Kales Hartwick Foundation · Benson & Edith Ford Fund

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization William & Martha Ford Fund funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from William & Martha Ford Fund. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

6get no government money at all

18report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to William & Martha Ford Fund?

Find your warmest path to William & Martha Ford Fund 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.

Play a game based on William & Martha Ford’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home