· Private foundation
Edward & Hildegarde Schaefer 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 $10k19 grants · $77k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $20k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FORT WAYNE PHILHARMONIC | $10,000 |
| WELLS COUNTY BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB | $10,000 |
| COMMUNITY HARVEST FOOD BANK | $8,000 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF FORT WAYNE | $6,250 |
| WELLS COUNTY FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| MATTHEW 25 HEALTH CLINIC | $5,000 |
| YWCA NORTHEAST INDIANA | $5,000 |
| BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS | $5,000 |
| FORT WAYNE CHILDREN'S ZOO | $5,000 |
| ANIMAL RESCUE FUND | $5,000 |
| ACRES LAND TRUST | $5,000 |
| NATIONAL AQUARIUM | $4,000 |
| TURNSTONE | $4,000 |
| HEALTHIER MOMS AND BABIES | $3,000 |
| SCIENCE CENTRAL | $3,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $23k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 14%. 0% of those 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +51% since the first grant, against +9% for the ones you funded once.
23 repeat relationships — 17 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down; 3 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, 87% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $12k 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
- WCWELLS COMMUNITY BOYS & GIRLS CLUB9× · 2017–2025 · $73k · revenue +98%
- CHCOMMUNITY HARVEST FOOD BANK OF NORTHEAST INDIANA INC9× · 2017–2025 · $53k · revenue +21%
- M2MATTHEW 25 INC9× · 2017–2025 · $49k · revenue +0%
Funded once
- LNLC NATURE PARK INCone grant, 2023 · $3k · revenue +9%
- YYMCAone grant, 2024 · $2k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2021 · $2k
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.
Lincoln park zoo is dedicated to connecting people with nature by providing a free, family-oriented wildlife experience in the heart of chicago and by advancing the highest quality of animal care, horticulture, education, science and…
The adirondack council ensures the ecological integrity (clean water and air, wildlife habitat, etc.), wild character (solitude, scenic beauty, etc.), and vibrant communities of new york's six-million-acre adirondack park. the adirondack…
Create relationships & experiences that welcome and inspire people to discover, enjoy, value, and care for nature. Kalamazoo Nature Center envisions a resilient community where all people have strong interconnections with the natural world.
Animal care sanctuary's lifesaving mission as a no kill organization envisions a community that promotes turning compassion into action for companion animals by: 1.) adopting healthy pet companions into loving homes. 2.) promoting the…
Buffalo audubon society leads and inspires western new yorkers to connect with and protect the natural world through bird-focused activities, advocacy and habitat restoration.
The wilds is a conservation center and safari park operating as a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization on nearly 10,000-acres in southeastern ohio. the wilds specializes in high-quality recreational opportunities that focus on connecting…
The central indiana land trust, inc. preserves the best of central indiana's natural areas, protecting plants and animals, so hoosiers can experience the wonder of the state's natural heritage.
The organization rescues, provides veterinary care, and rehabilitates injured, orphaned, and sick native wildlife with the goal of releasing them back into the wild. the organization monitors and controls wildlife disease and environmental…
Naples zoo is accredited by the american zoo & aquarium association (aza) and has numerous animal exhibits placed on its 45-acre site. (continued on schedule o)each exhibit is unique and designed to simulate typical conditions for the…
To preserve the beauty, health, and diversity of southern indiana's natural landscape through strategic land conservation and environmental education.
Red-tail land conservancy preserves, protects, and restores natural areas and farm land in east central indiana while increasing awareness of our natural heritage.
Building community; creating connections; saving wildlife through a collaboration for change: the buffalo zoo will be a center of conservation excellence, providing leadership to secure a future where wildlife thrives. we embody our…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Turnstone Center for Children & Adults With Disabilities Inc and the most unlike its peers is Science Central Inc. 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 51 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% 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.
19 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. 19 of the 31 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 WELLS COMMUNITY BOYS & GIRLS CLUB ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY HARVEST FOOD BANK OF NORTHEAST INDIANA INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF NORTHEAST IND ↗
- Who funds MATTHEW 25 INC ↗
- Who funds ACRES Inc ↗
- Who funds HEALTHIER MOMS AND BABIES INC ↗
- Who funds TURNSTONE CENTER FOR CHILDREN & ADULTS WITH DISABILITIES INC ↗
- Who funds BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF SOUTH CENTRAL INDIANA ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds FORT WAYNE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds SCIENCE CENTRAL INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF THE CUMBERLANDS INC ↗
- Who funds BRIDGE OF GRACE COMPASSIONATE MINISTRIES CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds BEREA COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds WELLS COUNTY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds YWCA NORTHEAST INDIANA INC ↗
- Who funds ANIMAL RESCUE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds PROFESSIONAL ANIMAL RETIREMENT CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds LC NATURE PARK INC ↗
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 James Foundation Inc · McMillen Foundation Inc · Edward M Wilson Foundation · English-Bonter-Mitchell Fdn · Lincoln Financial Foundation Inc · M E Raker Foundation Inc · The Waterfield Foundation Inc · Aws Foundation Inc · Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne Inc · Nisource Charitable Foundation · Edward D & Ione Auer Foundation Monarch Capital David Meyer Trustee · Zollner 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 Edward & Hildegarde Schaefer 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 Edward & Hildegarde Schaefer Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Edward & Hildegarde Schaefer 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.