· Public charity
Denison University
Through an emphasis on active learning, DENISON UNIVERSITY engages students in the liberal arts, which fosters self-determination and the transformative power of education.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 11 grants below total $394,250 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $91,696,389 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $91,302,139 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 · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $13k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $103k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $279k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GRANVILLE TOWNSHIP BOARD OF TRUSTEES | $223,500 |
| THE COLUMBUS PARTNERSHIP | $55,000 |
| LICKING COUNTY UNITED WAY | $25,000 |
| LICKING COUNTY TRANSIT BOARD | $20,000 |
| GRANVILLE EXEMPTED VILLAGE SCHOOL DISTRICT | $15,000 |
| THE WORKS | $12,500 |
| ONE COLUMBUS | $10,000 |
| PBJ CONNECTIONS INC | $10,000 |
| NATIONAL WOMEN'S HISTORY MUSEUM | $10,000 |
| COLUMBUS ASSOCIATION FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS | $8,000 |
| GRANVILLE AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE | $5,250 |
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 (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 13% of your 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.
8 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 1 since wound down; 4 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, 78% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $85k 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
- TWTHE WORKS - OHIO CENTER FOR HISTORY ART & TECHNOLOGY5× · 2020–2025 · $94k · revenue +78%
- BABOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF COLUMBUS INC2× · 2021–2022 · $75k · revenue +9%
- CACOLUMBUS ASSOCIATION FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS6× · 2020–2025 · $49k · revenue +107%
Funded once
- GTGRANVILLE TOWNSHIP FIRE DEPTone grant, 2020 · $42k
- BBBIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF LICKING & PERRY COUNTIES INCone grant, 2021 · $28k · revenue +20%
- NMNEWARK MIDLAND THEATRE ASSOCIATIONone grant, 2022 · $25k · revenue +14%
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.
Advancing a thriving central ohio commmunity by serving as a catalyst for all businesses to grow and flourish. our mission pillars are connections, government relations, strategic business solutions and talent/workforce.
Empowering people. saving wildlife.
Various programs promoting business and economic well being of the community.
Columbus compact is a catalyst for positive development of central city columbus' neighborhoods and business districts.
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 mission of leadership columbus is to develop, connect and inspire leaders who serve as catalysts in building a strong and vibrant community.
To grow the vibrancy and economic prosperity of the cincinnati region.
The purpose of the greater columbus chamber of commerce is to promote and develop civic, educational, commercial and industrial interests in columbus, georgia and certain surrounding areas.
To enhance the quality of life in the community by stimulating community interest in art, fostering creation and inquiry throughout columbus, and leading a vibrant arts culture tied to our unique history.
The community education coalition (cec) is a partnership of education, business, and community stakeholders focused on aligning and integrating our community learning system, economic development, and quality of life.
The mission of the greater cleveland sports commission is to measurably improve the economy of greater cleveland and enrich the community by attracting, creating, managing and enhancing significant sporting and competitive events.
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.…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Columbus Partnership and the most unlike its peers is Great Circle Alliance. 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 36 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% 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 32 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 UNITED WAY OF LICKING COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds THE WORKS - OHIO CENTER FOR HISTORY ART & TECHNOLOGY ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF COLUMBUS INC ↗
- Who funds THE COLUMBUS PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS ASSOCIATION FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF LICKING & PERRY COUNTIES INC ↗
- Who funds NEWARK MIDLAND THEATRE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE FOOD PANTRY NETWORK OF LICKING COUNTY ↗
- Who funds LICKING COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds GRANVILLE AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ↗
- Who funds LICKING LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds LICKING COUNTY COMMUNITY CENTER FOR 60 ADULTS INC ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds PBJ CONNECTIONS JEDLICKA ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL WOMEN'S HISTORY MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds ONE COLUMBUS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Indianapolis Downtown Inc ↗
- Who funds GREAT CIRCLE ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds ONE COLUMBUS ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY - MIDOHIO ↗
- Who funds GROW LICKING COUNTY ↗
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: Licking County Foundation Inc · Licking Memorial Health Foundation · First Federal Foundation · The Lindorf Family Foundation · Park National Corporation Foundation · The Patricia R and Herbert J Murphy Foundation · The Englefield Foundation · Energy Cooperative Roundup Foundation Inc · Columbus Foundation · The Lefevre Foundation · The O'Neill Foundation · American Electric Power 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 Denison University 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.