· Private foundation
Bicknell Fund
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k16 grants · $92k
- $10k–50k11 grants · $171k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ADIRONDACK LAKES CENTER FOR THE ARTS | $50,000 |
| ARCHBOLD FOUNDATION | $30,000 |
| THE SALVATION ARMY | $20,000 |
| HOLDEN FORESTS & GARDEN | $20,000 |
| FOOD STRONG | $20,000 |
| CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY | $15,500 |
| JUDSON FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| AMERICAN RED CROSS | $10,000 |
| ALL HANDS AND HEARTS | $10,000 |
| MEDWISH INTERNATIONAL | $10,000 |
| TEAM RUBICON | $10,000 |
| APPALACHIAN TRAIL RESILIECY FUND | $10,000 |
| PLAYHOUSE SQUARE FOUNDATION | $8,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $7,500 |
| BROOKWOOD SCHOOL | $7,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $118k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 79% 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 +30% since the first grant, against +12% for the ones you funded once.
42 repeat relationships — 22 still active in FY2024, 20 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 67% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $100k 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
- GCGREATER CLEVELAND FOOD BANK INC6× · 2017–2023 · $186k · revenue +29%
- CZCLEVELAND ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY5× · 2017–2022 · $143k · revenue +72%
- CMCLEVELAND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY7× · 2017–2024 · $91k · revenue +31%
Funded once
- SHSANTAS HIDE-A-WAY HOLLOWone grant, 2018 · $20k · revenue -41%
- CHCHN HOUSING PARTNERSone grant, 2021 · $20k · revenue -37%
- TFTWO FOUNDATION INC TWO CAFE & BOUTIQUEgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue +102%
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.
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…
Global cleveland is dedicated to growing northeast ohio's economy by welcoming and connecting international people to opportunities and fostering a more inviting community for those seeking a place to call home.
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…
The common application is a not-for-profit membership organization of over 1,100 colleges and universities across the globe committed to access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. every year, over 1.5 million students…
All students learn the academic and personal skills they need to be truly prepared for postsecondary success and able to pursue their dreams.
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
To serve our communities by provding innovative and compassionate healthcare.
Provides innovative education in a dynamic urban setting. dedicated to academic excellence and community engagement,we prepare students of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skill,and experience to lead meaningful lives as informed…
Empowering people. saving wildlife.
Compass charter school is a safe and nurturing educational environment that honors the individuality of each learner. by engaging in a process of inquiry, our graduates will be equipped with the necessary skills to lead fulfilling personal…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Way of Greater Cleveland and the most unlike its peers is Hillsdale College. 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 40 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
57 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. 57 of the 76 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 CLEVELAND FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds CLEVELAND ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds ARCHBOLD FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds WESTERN RESERVE LAND CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds True Freedom Enterprises ↗
- Who funds TEAM RUBICON INC ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF GREATER OHIO ↗
- Who funds AMERICARES FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF GREATER CLEVELAND ↗
- Who funds DENISON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CLEVELAND SOCIETY FOR THE BLIND ↗
- Who funds Playhouse Square Foundation ↗
- Who funds ADIRONDACK LAKES CENTER FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds BROOKWOOD SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds LAKEVIEW CEMETERY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MISS HALL'S SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds FIELDSTONE FARM THERAPEUTIC RIDING CENTER ↗
- Who funds HILLSDALE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds LAWRENCE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THOMASVILLE CULTURAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds FOSTERING HOPE ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds JUDSON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds EMERALD DEVELOPMENT & ECONOMIC NETWORK ↗
- Who funds Mercy Corps ↗
- Who funds SANTAS HIDE-A-WAY HOLLOW ↗
- Who funds CHN HOUSING PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds FOOD STRONG ↗
- Who funds VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE SERVICES ↗
- Who funds EDWINS LEADERSHIP & RESTAURANT INSTITUTE ↗
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: The Cleveland Foundation · The Reinberger Foundation · The Char and Chuck Fowler Family Foundation · The Lozick Family Foundation · Jewish Federation of Cleveland · The Swagelok Foundation · The George Gund Foundation · Higley Fund of the Cleveland Foundation · B Charles and Jay G Ames Foundation · The Kelvin & Eleanor Smith Foundation · The Abington Foundation · The Louise H & David S Ingalls Fdn
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 Bicknell Fund 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.
- Mercy Corps — 47% of income from government
- City Year Inc — 11% of income from government
- Americares Foundation Inc — 0% 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.