· Private foundation
Eastman Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k7 grants · $10k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $15k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNITED WAY OF BUFFALO & ERIE COUNTY | $15,000 |
| THE EVERGLADES FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
| ERIE COUNTY LAW ENFORCEMENT FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
| HILARY GRACE FOUNDATION | $1,500 |
| SHEA'S BUFFALO THEATRE | $1,200 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB | $1,000 |
| SKIN CANCER FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| JACK ROGERS FOUNDATION | $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.
Your human-services grants (FY20–21, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 100% 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.
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.
17 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2025, 11 since wound down; 2 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, 86% 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
UNITED WAY OF BUFFALO AND ERIE COUNTY9× · 2017–2025 · $233k · revenue -35%- RPROSWELL PARK ALLIANCE FOUNDATION4× · 2017–2024 · $83k · revenue -2%
- MUMEDAILLE UNIVERSITY6× · 2017–2023 · $60k · revenue +12%
Funded once
- BSBUFFALO STATE COLLEGE FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2017 · $16k · revenue +19%
- NENEW ERA CAP FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $10k · revenue +545%
- BFBUFFALO FINE ARTS ACADEMYone grant, 2018 · $10k · revenue +24%
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.
Invest buffalo niagara foundation, inc. is a vehicle to solicit charitable contributions to develop programs, collaborate with, and provide funding to organizations that advance and encourage economic development in western new york.
The mission of the university at buffalo foundation, inc. is to support and promote the activities and programs of the university at buffalo, state university of new york.
Provide financial assistance in the form of educational scholarships to qualified high school students.
To support and strengthen the fundraising programs of the state university of new york at oneonta so that gifts and grants are raised for student scholarships, faculty/student research, lectureships, and numerous academic and institutional…
The organization's exempt purpose is to promote and cultivate the quality of education and activities for students of the state university of new york at buffalo. the organization carries out those charitable and educational purposes by…
The mission of the university at albany foundation is to encourage, receive, accept, hold, invest, and manage money and property of every description, and the disbursement thereof for the promotion, development and advancement of the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Buffalo State College Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is New Era Cap Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 32 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 9% 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.
22 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. 22 of the 53 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 BUFFALO AND ERIE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds ROSWELL PARK ALLIANCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MEDAILLE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds KEVIN GUEST HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO STATE COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NEW ERA CAP FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO FINE ARTS ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds THE EVERGLADES FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE HILARY GRACE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ECMC FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CITY MISSION SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO SABRES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ERIE COUNTY LAW ENFORCEMENT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE SKIN CANCER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ITALIAN-AMERICAN POLICE ASSN OF WNY ↗
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: Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo Inc · The Ralph C Wilson Jr Foundation · The Baird Foundation · First Niagara Foundation · Equitable Foundation Inc · Rich Family Foundation · Zeron Foundation · Demakos Foundation · The Osc Charitable Foundation · Cullen Foundation of Western New York Inc · Buffalo Sabres Foundation · James H Cummings Foundation Inc
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 Eastman 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.
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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Eastman Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Eastman Foundation 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.