Funders › Michigan

Sage Foundation

Brighton, MI · EIN 38-6041518. Reported 297 grants totalling $7,388,750 to 114 recipients across tax years 2022-2025. This foundation did not tell the IRS it funds only preselected organizations.

Does this foundation accept applications?

Yes -- on its own tax return. Form 990-PF asks every private foundation whether it makes grants only to organizations it selects itself. Of the 91,758 foundations in our data that made a grant and answered, 78% said yes -- and applying to those is wasted effort. Sage Foundation did not check that box on its most recent filing, which puts it in the minority that is at least open to being approached.

How big are its grants?

The median grant is $12,000. Half of everything it gave fell between $7,500 and $25,000; the smallest was $1,000 and the largest $200,000. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong foundation.

Every organization it funded

This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by name and state as they were written on the returns, so an organization entered under two different names appears twice. Years funded is the number of separate tax years in which that name received money.

73 of 114 (64%) received money in more than one year over the 4 years we hold.

Measured the way we measure every foundation -- what share of one year's grantees are funded again the next -- this one retains 68%, across 3 year-to-year transitions. The median foundation retains about 67%, so this one is about typical. This measures how often it paid the same organizations again. It says nothing about whether it would consider a new one.

What the money was for

Taken verbatim from the purpose field of its filings. This is the closest thing to a statement of what this foundation cares about, in its own words.

• Hillsdale College $200,000 · 2023
  General, charitable, educational - Choral Scholars Program Scholarships
• Window to the World Communications Inc $175,000 · 2024
  General, charitable, educational - Lisdoonvarna Matchmaking Festival film
• Grant Park Orchestral Association $125,000 · 2023
  General, charitable, educational
• Orchestral Association Chicago Symphony Orchestra $125,000 · 2022
  General, charitable - Sempre Always capital campaign
• Sand Lake Volunteer Fire Department $125,000 · 2022
  General, charitable, educational - Tanker and rescue vehicles
• Joffrey Ballet $100,000 · 2023
  General, charitable, educational - Live Music Program

What kind of organizations it funds

By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 150 grants where we could match the recipient to a registered organization. The categories are the IRS's. The match, made from the name and address on the return, is ours.

Giving by year

Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- filings arrive about a year late, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a foundation winding down.

Already committed for future years

Form 990-PF has a separate schedule for grants approved but not yet paid. Sage Foundation has 4 of them, worth $1,950,000. This is the one part of the filing that looks forward rather than back.

Where its money goes

65% of its giving went to organizations in Illinois. If your organization is based elsewhere, look in the recipient list for grants to your area before writing.

Funders that support the same organizations

These funders gave to organizations this one also funded -- some private foundations, some community foundations and other grantmaking charities. Shared grantees are a sign of overlapping priorities and nothing more: they do not show that any of these funders would consider a new organization. Each page says what its filings show.

How to approach this foundation

1. Check you are its size. The median grant is $12,000. A request many times that size asks for something it has rarely or never given.
2. Check you are in its geography. Its giving is concentrated in Illinois.
3. Read the recipient list above for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer, and a cheap one to get.
4. Look up the current filing before writing. The 990-PF names the foundation's officers and, where one exists, its application procedure. We link it below.

Related guides

Where these numbers come from

Everything above is taken from Sage Foundation's own Form 990-PF filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 5 returns (tax years 2021-2025). Grant figures are from its returns. Matching recipients to registered organizations, their IRS classifications, the retention rate and the funders that support the same organizations are our own calculations, described in how we build this.

Address of record on the latest return: Po Box 1919, Brighton, MI, 48116. This is the address the foundation gave the IRS; many small foundations file through an accountant or a bank trust department, so it may not be where post to a programme officer should go.

EIN 38-6041518 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this

Is something here wrong about your foundation? Email [email protected] and we will correct it.