· Community foundation
Akron Community Foundation
To identify, activate, and support informed and passionate philanthropists who strive to improve the quality of life in our community.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 335 grants below total $14,693,932 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $15,513,159 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $819,227 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k77 grants · $555k
- $10k–50k194 grants · $3.8M
- $50k–250k53 grants · $5.4M
- $250k+11 grants · $5.0M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MEDINA COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $1,099,309 |
| UNITED WAY OF SUMMIT AND MEDINA | $631,898 |
| SUMMIT EDUCATION INITIATIVE | $519,648 |
| IBH FOUNDATION INC | $457,747 |
| ACCESS INC | $400,229 |
| UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS HEALTH SYSTEM INC | $382,466 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON FOUNDATION | $373,869 |
| AKRON ART MUSEUM | $316,655 |
| SUMMIT METRO PARKS FOUNDATION | $266,351 |
| ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC | $260,182 |
| FRIENDS OF MEDINA COUNTY PARKS INC | $250,000 |
| AKRON-CANTON REGIONAL FOODBANK | $243,010 |
| FRIENDS OF THE FRANCISCAN CHAPEL CENTER | $230,000 |
| HUMANE SOCIETY OF SUMMIT COUNTY | $221,654 |
| AKRON PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $220,824 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY17–25, $10.2M) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 99% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
Which US states your grants reach
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +31% since the first grant, against +18% for the ones you funded once.
557 repeat relationships — 275 still active in FY2025, 282 since wound down; 48 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.3M went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). 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
- SESUMMIT EDUCATION INITIATIVE9× · 2017–2025 · $5.0M · revenue +25% · 61% of their budget
- IFIBH FOUNDATION INC9× · 2017–2025 · $4.4M · revenue +40% · 93% of their budget
- TUTHE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON FOUNDATION9× · 2017–2025 · $2.9M · revenue +70%
Funded once
- BFBATH FIRE DEPARTMENT INCORPORATEDone grant, 2021 · $1.8M
- TRTHE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM INCgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $1.0M · revenue +50%
- SVSt Vincent Parish Foundationone grant, 2024 · $250k · revenue +19% · 73% of their budget
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
To lead and equip ohio philanthropy to be effective partners for change in our communities.
To harness the collective expertise of ohio's ceos to advocate for policies that improve ohio's economic competitiveness.
Advancing a thriving central ohio commmunity by serving as a catalyst for all businesses to grow and flourish. our mission pillars are connections, government relations, strategic business solutions and talent/workforce.
To strengthen the capacity of United Ways across Ohio and to advance the common good for Ohioans.
United way of central ohio is the local organization that harnesses the power of communities working together - people, nonprofits, businesses and government - to create a stronger, more equitable central ohio. see schedule o.we do this…
Greater cleveland volunteers enriches the community and indivuduals through volunteer service. volunteers age 18 and older are recruited and placed in the agency's programs or referred to local nonprofit or public organizations to help…
Empowering and strengthening ohio's people (esop) helps adults in all stages of life achieve and maintain financial wellness and housing stability.
The ohio state bar association (the "association") is an unincorporated voluntary non-profit organization. the association was formed to promote justice and advance the interests of the legal profession.
To develop charitable gifts and resources dedicated to building healthier communities in southwest ohio.
To promote economic development, job creation, job retention, job training, workforce development, and the retention of current and recruitment of new business to ohio.
As the state's leading business advocate and resource, the ohio chamber of commerce aggressively champions free enterprise, economic competitiveness and growth for the benefit of all ohioans.
Diabetes partnership of cleveland works to provide relevant and sustainable programming, education, resources and supplies to the community in northeast ohio affected by diabetes.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Help Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Tom Gold Dance Foundation 51 West 81ST Street. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 33 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 11% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
779 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 779 of the 1,019 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds SUMMIT EDUCATION INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF SUMMIT AND MEDINA ↗
- Who funds IBH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY OF AKRON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OHIO & ERIE CANALWAY COALITION ↗
- Who funds AKRON ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds THE CLEVELAND FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AKRON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY HALL FOUNDATION INC DBA AKRON CIVIC THEATRE ↗
- Who funds AKRON-CANTON REGIONAL FOODBANK ↗
- Who funds CONSERVANCY FOR CUYAHOGA VALLEY NATIONAL PARK ↗
- Who funds BUSINESS VOLUNTEERS UNLIMITED ↗
- Who funds LEADERSHIP AKRON ↗
- Who funds BUILDING FOR TOMORROW ↗
- Who funds MEDINA COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ART RESOURCES TRANSFORMATIONS ↗
- Who funds HOPE AND HEALING SURVIVOR RESOURCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER AKRON CHAMBER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ACCESS INC ↗
- Who funds CHILD GUIDANCE & FAMILY SOLUTIONS ↗
- Who funds AKRON COMMUNITY SERVICE CENTER & URBAN LEAGUE INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL MEDICAL CENTER OF AKRON ↗
- Who funds ROTARY CAMP FOR CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS INC ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF SUMMIT COUNTY ↗
- Who funds THE AKRON MARATHON CHARITABLE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds DEVELOPMENT FUND OF WESTERN RESERVE INC ↗
- Who funds AKRON CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SUMMIT METRO PARKS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OPPORTUNITY PARISH ECUMENICAL NEIGHBORHOOD MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS HEALTH SYSTEM INC ↗
- Who funds YOUNGSTOWN STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CORNERSTONE ACADEMY INC LAKEWAY CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds DOWNTOWN AKRON PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds STAN HYWET HALL & GARDENS INC ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Sisler McFawn Foundation Pfdn · The Welty Family Foundation · United Way of Summit and Medina · Gar Foundation · Northern Ohio Golf Charities Foundation Inc · Charles E and Mabel M Ritchie Memorial · L R Moffitt & L W Moffitt Foundation · Lloyd L & Louise K Smith Foundation · Mary S & David C Corbin Foundation · Lehner Family Foundation · Burton D Morgan Foundation Inc · W Paul Mills & Thora J Mills Memorial
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Akron Community Foundation funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- The Shriners' Hospital for Children — 6% of income from government
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 your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not 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 12–24 months.