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Early Connections Inc at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Early Connections Inc

The organization is a leading organization in northwestern pennsylvania for quality early care and education.

$211k
Granted FY2025still arriving
7
Grants FY2025still arriving
—
States reached
$65k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02Its granteesRead
03Its fieldRead
04Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2022 to 2025.

Education$930kEnvironment$48kHuman Services$38kYouth Development$23k
02FY2025 · 7 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 7 grants below total $200,849, the rows itemized in this filing. The $211,202 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $10,353 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k1 grant · $7k
  • $10k–50k5 grants · $129k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $65k
$22,761
Median grant
—
States reached
$2.7M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
ERIE FIRST EARLY ED CENTER$64,908
YMCA OF ERIE$35,370
LITTLE EXPLORERS CHRISTIAN ACADEMNY$34,421
GROWING AND LEARNING CENTER$22,761
SOUTH HILLS CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTER$20,520
BARBER NATIONAL INSTITUTE HAPPY HEARTS$16,119
YOUNG ENVIORNMENT$6,750
02Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

88%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$910k · 9 repeat orgs$129k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +17% since the first grant, against +10% for those funded once.

9 repeat relationships: 6 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

9
5

Total granted

$910k
$94k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+17%
+10%

Still filing today

33%
20%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 83% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $34k went to new ones.

50%100%’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • YM
    YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF GREATER ERIE
    4× · 2022–2025 · $256k · revenue -15%
  • FA
    FIRST ASSEMBLY OF GOD
    4× · 2022–2025 · $221k
  • GA
    GROWING AND LEARNING CENTER
    4× · 2022–2025 · $143k

Funded once

  • FK
    FIT KIDS
    one grant, 2022 · $23k
  • MC
    MILLCREEK CHILD DEV
    one grant, 2022 · $21k
  • BC
    BARB'S CARE A LOT
    one grant, 2022 · $20k
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

03Its field
03the grantee network

4 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 4 of the 15 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
4/4
Grantees still filing
3/4
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

FIRST ASSEMBLY OF GOD: $220,558 · OtherFIRST ASSEMBLY OF GODGROWING AND LEARNING CENTER: $142,663 · OtherGROWING AND LEARNING CENTERSOUTH HILLS CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTER: $105,471 · OtherSOUTH HILLS CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTERYOUNG ENVIORNMENT: $48,030 · OtherYOUNG ENVIORNMENTLEARNING LADDER: $39,890 · OtherLEARNING LADDERLITTLE EXPLORERS CHRISTIAN ACADEMNY: $34,421 · OtherMulticultural Community Resource Center: $32,812 · OtherASHA GRAEBS CHILDCARE: $27,444 · Other+4 more: $79,340 · Other+4 moreYOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF GREATER ERIE: $255,840 · Human ServicesYOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION…DR GERTRUDE A BARBER CENTER INC: $37,631 · Human ServicesDR GERTRUDE A BARBER CENTER INCSt Martin Center: $15,047 · Human Services
Other$730,629Human Services$308,518

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetYOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF GREATER ERIE: $255,840 over 4y, 0.7% of budgetDR GERTRUDE A BARBER CENTER INC: $37,631 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetMulticultural Community Resource Center: $32,812 over 2y, 1.2% of budgetSt Martin Center: $15,047 over 1y, 0.4% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

  • Who funds YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF GREATER ERIE ↗
  • Who funds DR GERTRUDE A BARBER CENTER INC ↗
  • Who funds Multicultural Community Resource Center ↗
  • Who funds St Martin Center ↗

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Northwest Institute o…Erie Community Founda…United Way of Erie Co…Fidelity Investments …
Northwest Institute of ResearchPA30.4× affinity12 shared granteesties to 3 of 3Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Northwest Institute of Research · Erie Community Foundation · United Way of Erie County · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Early Connections Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Early Connections Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

2025
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    4report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
    04Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Early Connections Inc?

    Find your warmest path to Early Connections Inc 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 15 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Early Connections’ filings →

    More from the funding graph

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