· Private foundation
Brian & Gretchen Colleran Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $3k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $325k
- $250k+1 grant · $1.1M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| National Areas Land Conservancy | $1,094,280 |
| Turning Point USA | $100,000 |
| Western Reserve Historical Society | $100,000 |
| Hunting Valley Foundation | $75,000 |
| Cathedral of St John | $50,000 |
| The Lillian and Betty Ratner Montessori School | $10,000 |
| NPower Services | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY18–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 96% of your 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +44% since the first grant, against +7% for the ones you funded once.
12 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 9 since wound down; 4 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, 13% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.2M 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
- WRWESTERN RESERVE HISTORICAL SOCIETY5× · 2020–2024 · $600k · revenue +63%
- HHOPEWELL2× · 2018–2019 · $220k · revenue +84%
- THTHE HUNTING VALLEY FOUNDATION3× · 2022–2024 · $140k · revenue +211% · 37% of their budget
Funded once
- CMCLEVELAND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORYgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $1.0M · revenue +48%
- MOMUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CLEVELANDone grant, 2019 · $254k · revenue -55%
- RBRAINBOW BABIES & CHILDREN'S FOUNDATIONone grant, 2018 · $75k · revenue +7%
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.
Cvph medical center's mission is to provide quality health care for the north country region in upstate new york.
Our mission is to enrich the lives of all people in northeast ohio by conserving natural habitats, restoring the ecological value of our region's lands and waters, and expanding opportunities to connect people from all cultures to…
Enhance the lives of all residents of greater cleveland, now and for generations to come, by working together with our donors to build community endowment, address needs through grantmaking, and provide leadership on key community issues.
The conservancy engages community involvement through 1) programs and services to enhance the park visitor experience; 2) co-management of the park's award-winning "volunteer in parks" (vip) program; 3) education programs for school age…
The mission of the cleveland museum of art (cma) is to fulfill its dual roles as one of the world's most distinguished comprehensive art museums and as one of northeastern ohio's principal civic and cultural institutions. the museum,…
The huntington library, art museum, and botanical gardens shares its world-renowned collections to support scholarship, foster learning, inspire creativity, and offer transformative experiences for diverse audiences.
The cleveland botanical garden connects people with the wonder, beauty, and value of trees and plants, to inspire action for healthy communities.
The Granville Historical Society acquires, preserves, and shares Granvilles past with residents and visitors to inspire curiosity about, instill knowledge of, and foster a commitment to our history.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Cerebral Palsy Association of Greater Cleveland Inc and the most unlike its peers is Chagrin Valley Upland Society Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
14 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. 14 of the 27 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 CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds WESTERN RESERVE HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds THE CLEVELAND ANIMAL PROTECTIVE LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART CLEVELAND ↗
- Who funds HOPEWELL ↗
- Who funds THE HUNTING VALLEY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TURNING POINT USA INC ↗
- Who funds RAINBOW BABIES & CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Summa Health ↗
- Who funds UNITED CEREBRAL PALSY ASSOCIATION OF GREATER CLEVELAND INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF BREAKTHROUGH SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds CHAGRIN VALLEY UPLAND SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds VILLAGE PROJECT ↗
- Who funds BLUECOATS 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: The Cleveland Foundation · Sullivan Family Fund · The Catherine L & Edward a Lozick Foundation · The Lozick Family Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · American Endowment Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation
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 Brian & Gretchen Colleran 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.
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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Brian & Gretchen Colleran Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Brian & Gretchen Colleran 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.