Grantmakers › Michigan

Southwest Michigan First Corp

Kalamazoo, MI · EIN 38-2853785. Reported 254 grants totalling $11.6M to 244 organizations across tax years 2021-2025, on Form 990 Schedule I.

Does this grantmaker accept applications?

Its tax return does not say, and we will not guess. Private foundations file Form 990-PF, which asks outright whether they fund only organizations they select themselves -- 78% say yes, and that one answer is what lets the rest of this site tell you which foundations are worth approaching. Grantmaking charities like this one file a regular Form 990 instead, and the IRS never puts the question to them. Anyone claiming to know the answer from the filing is inventing it.

Three things in the filing do bear on it:

1. What kind of organization it is. For Southwest Michigan First Corp, the IRS classifies it under community improvement rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE S300) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
2. How spread out its giving is. 244 distinct organizations, with 23% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is genuinely spread out -- the mark of a funder making many independent decisions rather than underwriting one institution.
3. How much its list changes. 4% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 4 year-to-year transitions. That is below the 56% median for grantmaking charities, and well below the 67% median for private foundations. It describes the organizations it already funds, not whether it would consider a new one.

How big are its grants?

The median reported grant is $15,000. Half of what it reported fell between $15,000 and $15,000; the smallest was $6,253 and the largest $2,379,369. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.

7 of those grants were non-cash -- goods, property or services worth $270,126 in total. In-kind giving is real support but it is not a cheque.

Every organization it funded

This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by the EIN the filer reported, not by name, so an organization that was typed differently in two years appears once rather than twice.

9 of 244 (4%) received money in more than one year over the 5 years we hold. Remember the $5,000 floor: an organization funded every year at $3,000 shows up here as never funded at all.

What the money was for

Taken verbatim from the purpose column of its filings, largest first. This is the closest thing to a statement of what it funds, in its own words.

• Battle Creek Unlimited $2,379,369 · 2023
  REVITALIZATION AND PLACEMAKING GRANT (MEDC)
• Battle Creek Unlimited Inc $249,461 · 2025
  Strategic Site Readiness Program (MEDC)
• Southwestern Michigan College $76,000 · 2022
  MICHIGAN SMALL BUSINESS SURVIVAL PROGRAM (MEDC)
• Cornerstone Alliance $65,625 · 2023
  COLLABORATIVE DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL GRANT (MEDC)
• Ltw Ergonomic Solutions $25,000 · 2023
  INDUSTRY 4.0 GRANT (MEDC)

What kind of organizations it funds

By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 5 of 244 recipients we could match to a registered organization. The categories are the IRS's, not ours -- Schedule I reports the recipient's EIN, so this is a lookup rather than a name match.

Giving by year

Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- Form 990 arrives about a year after the year it covers, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a grantmaker winding down.

Where its money goes

98% of its giving went to organizations in Michigan. Community foundations and federated funds are usually the most geographically bounded funders there are -- being outside the footprint is normally disqualifying in a way that a weak programme fit is not.

Down to the city

Funders that support the same organizations

These grantmakers and private foundations gave to organizations this one also funded. 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 grantmaker

1. Look for a published programme first. Unlike most private foundations, organizations of this kind often do run open, deadlined grant cycles with written guidelines. Its own website is the authority on that; this page is the authority on who it has actually paid.
2. Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $15,000 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
3. Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in Michigan.
4. Read the recipient list for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer and a cheap one to get.

Where these numbers come from

Everything above is taken from Southwest Michigan First Corp's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 5 returns (tax years 2021-2025). Grant figures are from its returns. Recipient classifications, the concentration and retention figures and the funders that support the same organizations are our own calculations from them, described in how we build this.

On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 7 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 7 other organizations. That is the filer's own count for one year; the totals above cover every year we hold.

Address of record on the latest return: 180 East Water Street 2690, Kalamazoo, MI, 49007.

EIN 38-2853785 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this

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