· Private foundation
Earnest F & Edna P Aber Scholarship Fund
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CARROLL UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| CEDARVILLE UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| FAITH BAPTIST BIBLE COLLEGE | $500 |
| LORAS COLLEGE | $500 |
| VITERBO COLLEGE | $500 |
| MOUNT MARY UNIVERSITY | $500 |
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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 49% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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 +9% since the first grant, against +6% for the ones you funded once.
19 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 1 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, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $500 went to new ones.
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
- FBFaith Baptist Bible College5× · 2018–2025 · $4k · revenue +89%
CARTHAGE COLLEGE5× · 2020–2024 · $3k · revenue +7%- GCGrand Canyon University4× · 2021–2024 · $3k · revenue +27%
Funded once
- OOXFORDone grant, 2017 · $500
- VUVILLANOVA UNIVERSITYone grant, 2024 · $500 · revenue +6%
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 mission of the university is to educate leaders for a global society who are strong in character and judgment, confident in their identity and vocation, and committed to service and justice.
Enriched by the lasallian catholic heritage, saint mary's university of minnesota awakens, nurtures, and empowers learners to ethical lives of service and leadership.
Founded by the norwegian evangelical lutheran church in 1861, luther college is a four-year, residential liberal arts institution. luther welcomes students of all backgrounds to engage in a way of learning that moves beyond immediate…
As the national university of the catholic church in the united states, founded and sponsored by the bishops of the country with the approval of the holy see, the catholic university of america is committed to being a comprehensive…
As a jesuit catholic university committed to academic rigor, inclusive excellence, and care for the whole person, john carroll university inspires individuals of intellect and character to learn, lead and serve in the community and…
St. marys university, as a catholic marianist university, fosters the formation of people in faith and educates leaders for the common good through community, integrated liberal arts and professional education, and academic excellence.
Saint xavier university, a catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the sisters of mercy, educates persons to search for truth, think critically, communicate effectively and serve wisely and compassionately in support of human…
To foster the vitality of community through learning and the pursuit of wisdom.
Augsburg university educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders.the augsburg experience is supported by an engaged community that is committed to intentional diversity in its…
As an institution of higher education committed to the reformed christian perspective, dordt university equips students, alumni, and the broader community to work effectively toward christ-centered renewal in all aspects of contemporary…
John brown university (jbu) provides christ-centered education that prepares students to honor god and serve others by developing their intellectual, spiritual, and professional lives. (continued on schedule o)jbu serves traditional…
The mission of calvin university is to equip students to think deeply, to act justly, and to live wholeheartedly as christ's agents of renewal in the world.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is St Norbert College Inc and the most unlike its peers is Coe College. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
16 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. 16 of the 23 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 Faith Baptist Bible College ↗
- Who funds CARTHAGE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds ST NORBERT COLLEGE INC ↗
- Who funds Grand Canyon University ↗
- Who funds Marquette University ↗
- Who funds The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago ↗
- Who funds Cedarville University ↗
- Who funds EDGEWOOD UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds LORAS COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds CARROLL UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds CARDINAL STRITCH UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds COE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds VITERBO UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds MOUNT MARY UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY ↗
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: The Alice Aber Smith Scholarship Fund · Herb Kohl Educational Foundation Inc · Ascendium Education Solutions Inc · American Endowment Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Earnest F & Edna P Aber Scholarship Fund 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.
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How do I get to Earnest F & Edna P Aber Scholarship Fund?
Find your warmest path to Earnest F & Edna P Aber Scholarship Fund 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.