· Private foundation
Coles Family Foundation co Peter Coles
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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k16 grants · $41k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $21k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Lake Park Friends | $21,000 |
| Northwoods Land Trust Inc | $6,000 |
| Riveredge | $5,000 |
| North Point Lighthouse Friends | $3,000 |
| TRUE Skool | $2,500 |
| Wisconsin Trust for Historic Preservation | $2,500 |
| Wisconsin Society for Ornithology | $2,500 |
| Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin | $2,500 |
| Great Headwaters Trail Foundation | $2,500 |
| Historic Milwaukee | $2,500 |
| The Nature Conservancy Wisconsin | $2,500 |
| Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin | $2,500 |
| Camp Manito-Wish | $2,500 |
| Milwaukee Preservation Alliance | $1,500 |
| St Mary's County Arts Council | $1,000 |
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 (FY20–23, $7k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +29% since the first grant, against +25% for the ones you funded once.
19 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2024, 4 since wound down; 2 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, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4k 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
- NLNORTHWOODS LAND TRUST INC5× · 2020–2024 · $26k · revenue +82%
- NPNORTH POINT LIGHTHOUSE FRIENDS INC5× · 2020–2024 · $13k · revenue +160%
BICYCLE FEDERATION OF WISCONSIN EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION INC4× · 2021–2024 · $12k · revenue +29%
Funded once
- RKRufus King High Schoolone grant, 2022 · $5k
- JOJCC of San Franciscoone grant, 2020 · $4k
- TNThe Nature Conservancy - WI chapterone grant, 2022 · $3k
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.
To preserve, promote, protect, and enhance wisconsin state parks, forests, trails, and recreation areas.
The milwaukee public museum inspires curiosity, excites minds and increases desire to preserve and protect our world's natural and cultural diversity through exhibitions, educational programs, collections and research.
To protect wisconsin's lands, waters, and wildlife by providing funding, leading partnerships, and connecting all people with nature.
Engage our community in supporting milwaukee county parks to collectively steward a thriving park system.
WMNC will continue constructing the new Milwaukee Public Museum facility to completion and will then continue as the owner and operator of the new museum.
Our mission is to protect water quality and wildlife habitat in the river corridors and to advocate for sound land use in the Milwaukee, Menomonee, and Kinnickinnic River Watersheds.
Lake Michigan is one of Wisconsin's greatest assets, and its water is critical to the state's future. The Fund for Lake Michigan is here to help sustain the Lake on behalf of the people and places that depend on it. Our goal is to have a…
The wisconsin wildlife federation has a dual mission to engage in conservation education and to advocate for sound conservation policy.
Protect and restore Wisconsin's natural heritage and ecology through active leadership, education and stewardship
To preserve lands that protect our waters, landscapes and natural habitats in northeast wisconsin. ne wisconsin is critical to the health of the largest freshwater estuaries in the world-lake michigan's crucial wetlands.
The mission of the west wisconsin land trust, inc. is to preserve western wisconsin's natural character by informing, facilitating, and partnering with private landowners, communities, and local governments to protect valuable land.
To protect, conserve, and enhance wisconsin's natural resources by advocating for and supporting county conservation efforts, for current and future generations.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Kids Forward 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.
21 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. 21 of the 31 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 PARK FRIENDS LTD ↗
- Who funds NORTHWOODS LAND TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH POINT LIGHTHOUSE FRIENDS INC ↗
- Who funds BICYCLE FEDERATION OF WISCONSIN EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds HISTORIC MILWAUKEE INC ↗
- Who funds CAMP MANITO-WISH YMCA INC ↗
- Who funds WISCONSIN TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE WISCONSIN SOCIETY FOR ORNITHOLOGY INC ↗
- Who funds KIDS FORWARD INC ↗
- Who funds TRUE SKOOL INC ↗
- Who funds RIVEREDGE NATURE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds MKE BLACK INC ↗
- Who funds ST MARY'S COUNTY ARTS COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds GREAT HEADWATERS TRAILS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER MILWAUKEE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN MARYLAND RC&D BOARD INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE PRESERVATION ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds HOLLYWOOD VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT 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: Herbert H Kohl Charities Inc · Greater Milwaukee Foundation Inc · Barbara Meyer Elsner Foundation · Dudley and Constance Godfrey Foundation Inc · Joseph and Vera Zilber Family Foundation Inc · Baird 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 Coles Family Foundation co Peter Coles 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.
- St Mary's County Arts Council Inc — 84% 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.