· Private foundation
Ella Weiss Educational Fund
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| OHIO UNIVERSITY | $2,450 |
| OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY | $1,050 |
| MUSKINGUM UNIVERSITY | $875 |
| OHIO UNIVERSITY ZANESVILLE | $525 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI | $350 |
| HEIDELBERG UNIVERSITY | $175 |
| OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY | $175 |
| BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY | $175 |
| WALSH UNIVERSITY | $175 |
| ASHLAND UNIVERSITY | $175 |
| CENTRAL OHIO TECHNICAL COLLEGE | $175 |
| UNIVERSITY OF FINDLAY | $175 |
| UNIVERSITY OF DAYTON | $175 |
| UNIVERSITY OF RIO GRANDE | $175 |
| OTTERBEIN UNIVERSITY | $175 |
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 16%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 77% of your 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.
31 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2025, 17 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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $350 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
- ONOhio Northern University5× · 2020–2025 · $17k · revenue +17%
- UOUniversity of Dayton5× · 2020–2025 · $13k · revenue +27%
- OUOtterbein University5× · 2020–2025 · $9k · revenue +1%
Funded once
- TOTHE OHIO STATE UNIVERISTYone grant, 2020 · $8k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2018 · $3k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $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.
The university affirms the institution's mission to prepare students for fulfilling lives, meaningful work and responsible citizenship. the university of mount union offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in a wide array of academic…
Benedictine University is an inclusive academic community dedicated to teaching and learning, scholarship and service, truth and justice, as inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition, the social teaching of the Church, and the…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
See schedule o.we are inspired by the ideals of our founder who, in 1896, emphasized respect for all people and ideas, who honored knowledge with practice, progress and the common good. our historical commitment to experiential learning…
Rooted in our Mercy Catholic liberal arts identity, we educate and inspire diverse learners in an environment where faith and reason flourish together for meaningful lives, dignified work, and leadership in service toward a just and loving…
Trinity university is an independent co-educational university whose mission is excellence in the interrelated areas of teaching, research and services.
Excelsior University provides educational opportunity to adult learners with an emphasis on those historically underrepresented in higher education. The University meets students where they are - academically and geographically, offering…
Capital university transforms lives by empowering an inclusive community of learners through engaging academic, co-curricular, and professional experiences.
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…
Manhattan university is an independent catholic instituion of higher learning that embraces qualified men and women of all faiths, cultures, and traditions. the mission of manhattan university is to provide a contemporary, person-centered…
Loyola University New Orleans, a Jesuit and Catholic institution of higher education, welcomes students of diverse backgrounds and prepares them to lead meaningful lives with and for others; to pursue truth, wisdom, and virtue; and to work…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Ohio Northern University and the most unlike its peers is Case Western Reserve University. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
18 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. 18 of the 75 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.
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: Ruth M Hughes Scholarship Trust · The Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges · Columbus Foundation · Clapper Scholarship Fund · Verna M Griffee Trust · Shelly Family Foundation · A K Stephenson Fdn Char Tr Agy · The Paul and Carol David Foundation · Coshocton Foundation · Council of Independent Colleges · Ann McConahay Educational Foundation · The Pearce 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 Ella Weiss Educational 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.