· Community foundation
Columbus Foundation
Entrusted with the responsibility to improve the community's quality of life, the COLUMBUS FOUNDATION embraces the following: to assist donors and others in strengthening and improving the community for the benefit of all its residents.
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.
The 1,747 grants below total $242,682,197 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $256,714,864 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $14,032,667 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k272 grants · $2.0M
- $10k–50k938 grants · $18M
- $50k–250k368 grants · $41M
- $250k+169 grants · $181M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE HUNTINGTON FOUNDATION | $21,846,166 |
| THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION | $11,667,513 |
| NATIONWIDE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $9,737,094 |
| COLUMBUS DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION & CAPITOL SOUTH | $8,420,523 |
| I KNOW I CAN | $4,741,988 |
| LESLEY UNIVERSITY | $4,305,000 |
| KIPP COLUMBUS FOUNDATION | $4,300,000 |
| COLUMBUS MUSEUM OF ART | $4,234,728 |
| COLUMBUS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC | $4,008,815 |
| THE NATURE CONSERVANCY IN OHIO | $3,811,425 |
| UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL OHIO INC | $3,084,390 |
| ALCOHOL DRUG AND MENTAL HEALTH BOARD OF FRANKLIN COUNTY | $3,000,000 |
| THE PAST FOUNDATION | $2,872,100 |
| COLUMBUS STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION INC | $2,866,284 |
| MID-OHIO FOODBANK DBA MID-OHIO FOOD COLLECTIVE | $2,652,781 |
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, $58.5M) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 98% 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 +38% since the first grant, against +6% for the ones you funded once.
1581 repeat relationships — 1074 still active in FY2024, 507 since wound down; 71 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, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $13M 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
- OSOHIO STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2024 · $96M · revenue +36%
- THThe Huntington Foundation7× · 2018–2024 · $90M · revenue +156% · 100% of their budget
- IKI KNOW I CAN8× · 2017–2024 · $29M · revenue +26% · 74% of their budget
Funded once
- MUMONMOUTH UNIVERSITY INCone grant, 2023 · $6.0M · revenue +1%
- ALADIRONDACK LAND TRUST INCone grant, 2022 · $2.5M · revenue -23% · 57% of their budget
- VNVITA NOVA MATERNITY COMMUNITYgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $1.5M · revenue +521%
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.
Aligning donor passion and generosity to advance the university of toledo through fundraising, stewardship, and prudent asset management to provide scholarship opportunities for students, tier one athletic programs, education events…
The central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is transforming our regional economy, bringing together the ceos of central indiana's largest and most civically engaged employers and university presidents to advance "big picture"…
Georgetown university is one of the world's leading academic and research institutions. established in 1789, georgetown is the nation's oldest catholic and jesuit university.
Oklahoma city university prepares all learners to create, lead and serve.
Uniting communities to alleviate hunger.
To promote economic development, job creation, job retention, job training, workforce development, and the retention of current and recruitment of new business to ohio.
The common application promotes access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process.
To harness the collective expertise of ohio's ceos to advocate for policies that improve ohio's economic competitiveness.
Offer a challenging education that develops the qualities of mind, spirit and body for students.
To encourage, steward & celebrate contributions from alumni & friends to support ucf.
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.
The democracy collaborative was established in 2000 to advance understanding of democracy for the 21st century and to promote emerging strategies and innovations in community development that enhance democratic life. in particular, our…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Ohio-West Virginia Youth Leadership and the most unlike its peers is The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 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 33 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% 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.
1589 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. 1589 of the 2,000 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds The Huntington Foundation ↗
- Who funds POWERHOUSE ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds THE JOURNEY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Greater Horizons ↗
- Who funds FOOD & WATER WATCH ↗
- Who funds I KNOW I CAN ↗
- Who funds GIGI'S SHELTER FOR DOGS ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL OHIO INC ↗
- Who funds Earlham College Inc ↗
- Who funds MYRIAD USA INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF DUBUQUE ↗
- Who funds THE NEW ALBANY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PELOTONIA ↗
- Who funds The Huntington-Akron Foundation ↗
- Who funds Mid-Ohio Foodbank ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds LIFECARE ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS METROPOLITAN LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FRANKLIN COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY DBA COSI COLUMBUS ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds PAST FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS ZOOLOGICAL PARK ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds LESLEY UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE COLUMBUS ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds METRO EARLY COLLEGE HIGH SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY SHELTER BOARD ↗
- Who funds Columbus School for Girls ↗
- Who funds HEINZERLING COMMUNITY ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF CENTRAL OHIO ↗
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: Ingram-White Castle Foundation · Harry C Moores Foundation · United Way of Central Ohio Inc · L Brands Foundation · Siemer Family Foundation · Encova Foundation of Ohio · Greater Columbus Arts Council · Cardinal Health Foundation · Margaret and Robert Walter Foundation · Columbus Jewish Foundation · Community Foundations Inc · The Foundation of the Catholic Diocese of Columbus
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 Columbus 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.
- Johns Hopkins University — 12% of income from government
- City Year Inc — 11% of income from government
- Lewis & Clark College — 2% of income from government
- Lesley University — 1% of income from government
- Monmouth University Inc — 0% of income from government
- Williams 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.