W E Upjohn Unemployment Trustee
Kalamazoo, MI · EIN 38-1360419. Reported 45 grants totalling $17.7M to 32 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:
- What kind of organization it is. For W E Upjohn Unemployment Trustee, the IRS classifies it under employment rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE J220) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 32 distinct organizations, with 62% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is concentrated. Most of the money has a settled destination, and the remainder is what is realistically in play.
- How much its list changes. 43% 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 $40,268. Half of what it reported fell between $7,500 and $139,770; the smallest was $7,500 and the largest $3,209,901. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
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.
| Organization | Location | Total received | Grants | Years funded | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency Foundation | Portage, MI | $10.9M | 4 | 4 | 2025 |
| Michigan State Afl-Cio Human Resources Development Inc | Lansing, MI | $4,933,254 | 4 | 4 | 2025 |
| New Level Sports | Battle Creek, MI | $309,726 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Voces | Battle Creek, MI | $275,000 | 2 | 2 | 2025 |
| University of Minnesota | Minneapolis, MN | $187,384 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Russell Sage Foundation | New York, NY | $180,000 | 3 | 3 | 2025 |
| University of Washington | Seattle, WA | $139,770 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Southwestern Michigan Urban League Inc | Battle Creek, MI | $125,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Greater Kingdom International | Battle Creek, MI | $123,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Womens Network Inc | Battle Creek, MI | $117,955 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Burmese American Initiative Inc | Springfield, MI | $74,400 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Battle Creek Unlimited Inc | Battle Creek, MI | $56,677 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Rise Corp | Battle Creek, MI | $50,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Develop Iosco Incorporated | East Tawas, MI | $25,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Catching the Dream Learning Center | Springfield, MI | $20,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Urban Institute | Washington, DC | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| The Regents of the University of California | Oakland, CA | $15,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Child Care Back Office | Alpena, MI | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Georgia State University Research Foundation Inc | Atlanta, GA | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Arthur & Ruth Taylor Irrv Trust Fbo 0902304700 | Tempe, AZ | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Chapman University | Orange, CA | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Cornell University | Ithaca, NY | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Cambridge, MA | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Northwestern University | Evanston, IL | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| President & Fellows of Middlebury College | Middlebury, VT | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Tilburg University | Tilburg | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Trustees of Indiana University | Detroit, MI | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Universidad De Los Andres | Bogota | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| University of North Texas | Denton, TX | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| University of Rochester | Rochester, NY | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| University of Southern California | Los Angeles, CA | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2025 |
| Vanderbilt University | Nashville, TN | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
8 of 32 (25%) 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.
- Kresa Foundation
EARLY CAREER RESEARCH AWARD - New Level Sports Ministries
GRANT FOR YOUTH VILLAGE GENERAL OPERATIONS - Southwestern Michigan Urban League
GRANT TO ADDRESS WORKFORCE AND FOOD SYSTEMS GAPS MOST SIGNIFICANTLY IMPACTING PEOPLE OF COLOR THAT WERE EXASPERATED BY THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC - Georgia State University Research Foundation Inc
INVESTING IN COMMUNITY RESEARCH GRANT - Cornell University
EARLY CAREER RESEARCH REWARD
What kind of organizations it funds
By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 23 of 32 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 year | Grants reported | Total | Median grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 3 | $4,405,952 | $1,139,374 |
| 2022 | 6 | $4,605,915 | $53,843 |
| 2023 | 12 | $4,640,816 | $67,200 |
| 2024 | 10 | $350,000 | $7,500 |
| 2025 | 14 | $3,659,048 | $8,750 |
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
96% 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.
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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
- 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.
- Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $40,268 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
- Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in Michigan.
- 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.
Related guides
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from W E Upjohn Unemployment Trustee'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.
Address of record on the latest return: 300 S Westnedge Avenue, Kalamazoo, MI, 49007.
EIN 38-1360419 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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