· Private foundation
Charles Elmer Scholarship Fund
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.
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.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k12 grants · $36k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $23k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY | $12,000 |
| OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY | $10,750 |
| CUYAHOGA COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $5,000 |
| LAKE ERIE COLLEGE | $4,750 |
| Wheaton College | $4,000 |
| Northeast Ohio Medical University | $4,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI | $3,500 |
| John Carroll University | $3,250 |
| OTTERBEIN UNIVERSITY | $3,000 |
| LAKELAND COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $2,750 |
| PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY | $1,500 |
| OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY | $1,250 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MOUNT UNION | $1,250 |
| BALDWIN WALLACE UNIVERSITY | $1,250 |
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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 89% 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.
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 +14% since the first grant, against +0% for the ones you funded once.
29 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2025, 18 since wound down; 3 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, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $9k went to new ones.
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
- LELAKE ERIE COLLEGE9× · 2017–2025 · $36k · revenue +28%
- BWBaldwin Wallace University6× · 2017–2025 · $18k · revenue +14%
Cornell University5× · 2017–2023 · $9k · revenue +59%
Funded once
- NDNOTRE DAME COLLEGEone grant, 2017 · $4k · revenue -21%
- NYNew York Universitygraduatedone grant, 2019 · $3k · revenue +51%
- HCHIRAM COLLEGEone grant, 2021 · $2k · revenue +0%
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.
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
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…
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
Manhattan university is an independent catholic instituion of higher learning that embraces qualified men and women of all faiths, cultures, and traditions. the mission of manhattan university is to provide a contemporary, person-centered…
Trinity university is an independent co-educational university whose mission is excellence in the interrelated areas of teaching, research and services.
Capital university transforms lives by empowering an inclusive community of learners through engaging academic, co-curricular, and professional experiences.
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
Walsh university is an independent, coeducational catholic, liberal arts and sciences institution dedicated to educating its students to become leaders in service to others through a values-based education with an international perspective…
Education - lagrange college challenges the minds and inspires the souls of its students. founded in 1831 and committed to its relationship with the united methodist church and its wesleyan and liberal arts traditions, the college supports…
See schedule o.we are inspired by the ideals of our founder who, in 1896, emphasized respect for all people and ideas, who honored knowledge with practice, progress and the common good. our historical commitment to experiential learning…
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…
Saint xavier university, a catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the sisters of mercy, educates persons to search for truth, think critically, communicate effectively and serve wisely and compassionately in support of human…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Ashland University and the most unlike its peers is New York University. 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 76 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) — 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 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.
24 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. 24 of the 45 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 LAKE ERIE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds LAKELAND UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Baldwin Wallace University ↗
- Who funds Cornell University ↗
- Who funds GROVE CITY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Otterbein University ↗
- Who funds Heidelberg University ↗
- Who funds University of Mount Union ↗
- Who funds WHEATON COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds NOTRE DAME COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds John Carroll University ↗
- Who funds New York University ↗
- Who funds ASHLAND UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds MARANATHA BAPTIST UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds HIRAM COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds PITTSBURGH TECHNICAL INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds The President and Trustees of Colby College ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK ↗
- Who funds Ohio Northern University ↗
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: National Collegiate Athletic Association · Ann McConahay Educational Foundation · The Paul and Carol David Foundation · The Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges · Ascendium Education Solutions Inc · Premier Bank Foundation · Folds of Honor Foundation · Columbus Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · The Ayco Charitable Foundation · AbbVie Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America
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 Charles Elmer Scholarship 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.
- Wheaton College — 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Charles Elmer Scholarship Fund?
Find your warmest path to Charles Elmer Scholarship Fund 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.