· Private foundation
Chris Hess Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $2k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $125k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $455k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| OGLEBAY FOUNDATION INC | $220,000 |
| YMCA OF WHEELING | $110,000 |
| WHEELING CENTRAL | $75,000 |
| THE LINSLY SCHOOL | $50,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $30,000 |
| FAITH IN ACTION | $15,000 |
| ORCHARD PARK HOSPITAL | $15,000 |
| OGLEBAY INSTITUTE | $15,000 |
| HOLY FAMILY CHILD CARE & DEVELOPMENT CENTER | $10,000 |
| MOUNDSVILLE VETERANS HONOR GUARD | $10,000 |
| NEWBRIDGE ACADEMY FOR KIDS | $10,000 |
| KING'S DAUGHTERS | $10,000 |
| OHIO VALLEY WELLNES COALITION | $10,000 |
| AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION | $2,000 |
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 (FY18–23, $60k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +72% since the first grant, against -2% for the ones you funded once.
20 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2025, 12 since wound down; 6 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, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $62k 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
- OFOGLEBAY FOUNDATION INC8× · 2018–2025 · $1.6M · revenue +238%
- YMYOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF WHEELING8× · 2018–2025 · $210k · revenue +72%
- TLTHE LINSLY SCHOOL INCORPORATED4× · 2018–2025 · $160k · revenue +72%
Funded once
- SVST VINCENT DE PAUL PARISHone grant, 2023 · $5k
- ALAMERICAN LEGION POST #1one grant, 2024 · $5k
- WJWHEELING JAMBOREE INCone grant, 2021 · $5k
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 organization operates a childhood center in oberlin, ohio for up tp 100 children ages six weeks to five years old. the center provides a unique, child centered campus for anyone in need regardless of financial ability.
Provide training to the ohio community action agencies.
Columbus early learning centers (celc) has over 130 years of history providing high quality, affordable early learning and childcare in central ohio. this rich history places celc amongst the oldest early childcare programs in the country.…
The mission of the ossining children's center is to provide high quality, educational childcare for children of working parents in a safe, supportive environment. we prepare our children for success in school with a basis for life-long…
Provide religious/educational child care for children 6 weeks through 11 years. it is the mission of faith child care to provide quality christian child care for families of the fox valley community in a nurturing environment that fosters…
To offer support to those recovering from addictions
To strengthen the capacity of United Ways across Ohio and to advance the common good for Ohioans.
Mission is to promote and advocate for the welfare of people with intellectual and other developmental disabilities.
To provide high quality child care.
Casa of ohio valley, inc.'s mission is to represent the best interests of children who enter the court systems as a result of dependency, abuse or neglect by recruiting, training, and supervising community volunteers.
Training for community action.
The Ohio Valley Youth Network (OVYN) unites churches, schools, businesses, and agencies to collaborate on events, programs, and services that improve the lives of local children and teens through Biblical principles across public, private,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Community Foundation for the Ohio Valley Inc and the most unlike its peers is American Heart Association Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
17 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. 17 of the 33 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 OGLEBAY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR THE OHIO VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF WHEELING ↗
- Who funds THE LINSLY SCHOOL INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds OGLEBAY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds WHEELING COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds FAITH IN ACTION CAREGIVERS INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF THE UPPER OHIO VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds AUGUSTA LEVY LEARNING CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds GROW OHIO VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds OHIO VALLEY WELLNESS COALITION ↗
- Who funds FAITH IN ACTION INC ↗
- Who funds CASA FOR CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds HOLY FAMILY CHILD CARE & DEVELOPMENT CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds GREAT STONE VIADUCT HISTORICAL EDUCATION SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds THE KING'S DAUGHTERS CHILD CARE CENTERS INC ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association 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: Community Foundation for the Ohio Valley Inc · The Driehorst Family Foundation · Albert Schenk III & Kathleen H Schenk Charitable Trust · Elizabeth Stifel Kline Foundation · Stamp 2001 Charitable Fund · Stamp Charitable Fund · Eqt Foundation · Harry and Helen Sands Charitable Trust · Robinson S Parlin Trust · W E Stone Foundation · James B Chambers Memorial · Ann Sonneborn Charitable 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 Chris Hess 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 Chris Hess Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Chris Hess 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.