· Private foundation
Badger Meter Foundation Inc
Its FY2022 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
93% of Badger Meter Foundation Inc’s FY2022 grant dollars went to Greater Milwaukee Foundation Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2022 names 23 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2021, the last year Badger Meter Foundation Inc named its own grantees at scale: 30 organizations, $157k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2022.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- Under $10k42 grants · $97k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $60k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MILWAUKEE WATER COUNCIL | $30,000 |
| CHILDRENS HOSPITAL | $30,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $7,500 |
| FEEDING AMERICA SECOND HARVEST | $5,000 |
| ALVERNO COLLEGE | $5,000 |
| MILWAUKEE COUNTY ZOO | $5,000 |
| MILWAUKEE PUBLIC MUSEUM | $5,000 |
| HUNGER TASK FORCE | $5,000 |
| UNITED COMMUNITY CENTER | $3,000 |
| PENFIELD CHIRLDREN'S CENTER | $3,000 |
| BROWN DEER SCHOLARSHIP FUND | $3,000 |
| ALZHEIMER'S ASSOCIATION OF SE WISCONSIN | $3,000 |
| HEAR WISCONSIN | $2,500 |
| DESIGNING DREAMS | $2,500 |
| BEYOND VISIONWISCRAFT INC | $2,500 |
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 (FY21–22, $33k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 83% 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.
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.
30 repeat relationships — 30 still active in FY2021, 0 since wound down; 19 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (too recent to call). Read against FY2021, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2022, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $13k 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
- PCPENFIELD CHILDREN'S CENTER INC2× · 2021–2022 · $8k · revenue +13%
- UCUNITED COMMUNITY CENTER INC2× · 2021–2022 · $7k · revenue +22%
AUDIO & BRAILLE LITERACY ENHANCEMENT INC2× · 2021–2022 · $6k · revenue +8%
Funded once
- SSEEone grant, 2020 · $164k
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.
We conduct impartial public policy research and analysis to drive informed debate and effective decision-making in the state of wisconsin.
Engage our community in supporting milwaukee county parks to collectively steward a thriving park system.
To promote interests and effectiveness of the nonprofit sector through strengthening organizational capacity, expanding volunteerism and encouraging collaboration.
Legal protection and advocacy to protect the rights of people with disabilities in wisconsin.
To reach a new generation of radio listeners on air, online and in the community with a compelling selection of music and public affairs programming. the corporation celebrates milwaukee music, arts, heritage, and culture by supporting and…
To enhance opportunities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (i/dd) to participate fully in their community as valued neighbors, productive workers and respected citizens. portal, inc. assists more than 200 adults…
The milwaukee community service corps (mcsc) is a non-profit vocational training organization providing employment, education and life skills to training youth adults and unemployed and underemployed of milwaukee, wisconsin.
The mission of the organization is to provide a high quality education for all students with choices after graduation that will provide financial stability, inspire personal freedom to builda legacy.
Pathways of wisconsin provides supported employment opportunities and empowerment through quality, person-centered programming for individuals of all abilities.
-instigate, implement, participate in and promote such activities as shall, in the judgment of mdc, tend to support the general community interest in a strong, vital, aesthetically exciting and economically viable greater milwaukee…
Building a coalition to create Milwaukee most dynamic neighborhood.
Making the arts accessible to all
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Milwaukee Center for Independence Inc and the most unlike its peers is Epilepsy Families Southeast Wi Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 48 years old; the field is 22. 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 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
32 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
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 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 32 of the 51 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
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 GREATER MILWAUKEE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds HUNGER TASK FORCE INC ↗
- Who funds PENFIELD CHILDREN'S CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds ALVERNO COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds UNITED COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds AUDIO & BRAILLE LITERACY ENHANCEMENT INC ↗
- Who funds DESIGNING DREAMS ↗
- Who funds BENEDICT CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds JOURNEY HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE PUBLIC MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds SOJOURNER FAMILY PEACE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Best Buddies International Inc ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE CENTER FOR INDEPENDENCE INC ↗
- Who funds THE BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF WASHINGTON COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds FIRST STAGE MILWAUKEE ↗
- Who funds INTERFAITH CAREGIVERS INC ↗
- Who funds SILVER SPRING NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds URBAN ECOLOGY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds HEAR Wisconsin Inc ↗
- Who funds Froedtert Hospital Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds GRAND AVENUE CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds NEXT DOOR FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds EPILEPSY FAMILIES SOUTHEAST WI INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE HOMELESS VETERANS INITIATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY NORTHWOODS 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: Green Bay Packers Foundation · Herbert H Kohl Charities Inc · Greater Milwaukee Foundation Inc · Anon Charitable Trust · Baird Foundation Inc · Evan & Marion Helfaer Foundation · United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County Inc · Milwaukee Jewish Federation Inc · Peck Foundation Milwaukee Ltd · Otto Bremer Trust · Joseph and Vera Zilber Family Foundation Inc · Melitta S and Joan M Pick Charitable Trust
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 Badger Meter Foundation Inc 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.
- Best Buddies International Inc — 4% 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.
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How do I get to Badger Meter Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Badger Meter Foundation Inc through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.