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· Private foundation

Balbach Family Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$109k
Granted FY2025still arriving
6
Grants FY2025still arriving
1
States reached
$26k
Largest
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2021 to 2025.

Education$90kHuman Services$87kArts & Culture$49kReligion$30kRecreation & Sports$26kPhilanthropy$25kHealth$10k
02FY2025 · 6 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$24,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$2.8M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
BUFFALO OLMSTED PARKS CONSERVANCY INC$25,500
UNITED WAY OF BUFFALO AND ERIE COUNTY$25,000
TORN SPACE THEATER INC$24,000
KLEINHANS MUSIC HALL MANAGEMENT INC$12,500
BUFFALO AKG ART MUSEUM$12,000
ROSWELL PARK ALLIANCE FOUNDATION$10,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY21–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%SALVATION ARMY: $87k → 13%NICHOLS SCHOOL: $90k → 13%WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH: $30k → 13%UNITED WAY OF BUFFALO AND ERIE COUNTY: $25k → 13%KLEINHANS MUSIC HALL MANAGEMENT INC: $13k → 13%TORN SPACE THEATER INC: $24k → 13%BUFFALO OLMSTED PARKS CONSERVANCY INC: $26k → 13%BUFFALO AKG ART MUSEUM: $12k → 13%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its field
04the grantee network

7 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 7 of the 9 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
7/7
Grantees still filing
0/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

THE SALVATION ARMY: $87,000 · OtherTHE SALVATION ARMYWESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH: $30,000 · OtherWESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHNICHOLS SCHOOL OF BUFFALO: $90,000 · EducationNICHOLS SCHOOL OF BUFFALOBUFFALO OLMSTED PARKS CONSERVANCY INC: $25,500 · Arts & CultureBUFFALO OLMSTED PARKS CONS…Torn Space Theater Inc: $24,000 · Arts & CultureTorn Space Theater IncKLEINHANS MUSIC HALL MANAGEMENT INC: $12,500 · Arts & CultureKLEINHANS MUSIC HALL MANAG…BUFFALO FINE ARTS ACADEMY: $12,000 · Arts & CultureBUFFALO FINE ARTS ACADEMYUNITED WAY OF BUFFALO AND ERIE COUNTY: $25,000 · PhilanthropyUNITED WAY O…ROSWELL PARK ALLIANCE FOUNDATION: $10,000 · PhilanthropyROSWELL PARK…
Other$117,000Education$90,000Arts & Culture$74,000Philanthropy$35,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetNICHOLS SCHOOL OF BUFFALO: $90,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetBUFFALO OLMSTED PARKS CONSERVANCY INC: $25,500 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetUNITED WAY OF BUFFALO AND ERIE COUNTY: $25,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetTorn Space Theater Inc: $24,000 over 1y, 2.4% of budgetKLEINHANS MUSIC HALL MANAGEMENT INC: $12,500 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetBUFFALO FINE ARTS ACADEMY: $12,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetROSWELL PARK ALLIANCE FOUNDATION: $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

The Baird FoundationNY17.9× affinity6 shared granteesties to 9 of 9Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Baird Foundation · Robert & Patricia Colby Foundation 115319998 · President and Fellows of Harvard College · Tower Family Fund Inc · Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies Inc · Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Balbach Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Balbach Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%3%5%8%10%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    3report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–10%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
    04Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Balbach Family Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Balbach Family Foundation 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 9 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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