Map: Geography and Characteristics of Detroit Non-profits

Within the City of Detroit there are 4,661 not for profit or nonprofit corporations registered with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). There are 82 nonprofits registered in Highland Park and 73 in Hamtramck. The vast majority (n=3,268) or 70% of those nonprofits have $0 income. Most nonprofits are classified by the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) as “christian” churches followed by “human service” organizations and “community improvement and capacity building” such as community development corporations (CDCs).

Income

Among the nonprofits that reported income, 966 reported some income under $1 million and 427 reported income over $1 million. The nonprofits with over $1 million that stand out in those very large yellow bubbles are:

Henry Ford Health System ($4.5 billion)
Blue Care Network of Michigan ($4.2 billion)
UAW Retiree Medical Benefits Trust ($3.8 billion)
DTE Energy VEBA Trust ($3.4 billion), and
Wayne State University ($1.4 billion)

Clearly this group of nonprofits are specific benefit funds that are massive in scale. The majority of nonprofits have budgets under $100 million. When nonprofits are filtered to just those with income over $0, “private foundations” become the dominant category of nonprofit making up almost 30% of all nonprofits making income in Detroit. Community economic development and capacity building nonprofits make up 16% and “christian” nonprofits make up about 11%.

Neighborhoods

All nonprofits were aggregated to the 56 Master Plan Neighborhoods to show spatial clustering and distribution. Nonprofits in the city have some obvious groupings in office heavy areas like Downtown, Midtown, the Woodward corridor, and Brewery Park in Eastern Market. After those areas, nonprofits follow a pattern of income with most nonprofits outside of Greater Downtown locating in the higher income Northwest Detroit neighborhoods.