· Community foundation
Erie County Community Foundation
The mission of the eccf is to provide for the enrichment of the quality of life in the erie county and sandusky, ohio community by developing a permanent endowment to assess and respond to changing community needs and by serving as a charitable mechanism for donors of all levels of charitable giving.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 69 grants below total $1,806,740 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $2,767,599 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $960,859 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k22 grants · $166k
- $10k–50k42 grants · $742k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $398k
- $250k+1 grant · $501k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SANDUSKY EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $500,600 |
| SANDUSKY STATE THEATRE | $242,456 |
| SANDUSKY CITY SCHOOLS | $53,696 |
| OHGO | $51,675 |
| FIRELANDS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $50,308 |
| STEIN HOSPICE | $40,310 |
| BAPTIST GENERAL ASSOCIATION OF | $40,000 |
| ERIE COUNTY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT | $37,851 |
| EDISON BIRTHPLACE ASSOCIATION | $34,885 |
| SANDUSKY CP MUSEUM | $30,641 |
| ZION EVANGELICAL LUTHERN CHURCH | $29,919 |
| HUMANE SOCIETY OF ERIE COUNTY | $25,163 |
| BGSU FIRELANDS | $25,000 |
| SANDUSKY CENTRAL CATHOLIC SCHOOLS | $22,724 |
| FATHERS HEART MINISTRIES | $22,482 |
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 (FY20–24, $244k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 2% 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 +58% since the first grant, against +1% for the ones you funded once.
76 repeat relationships — 50 still active in FY2024, 26 since wound down; 16 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 87% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $238k 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
- WRWESTERN RESERVE LAND CONSERVANCY4× · 2021–2024 · $1.0M · revenue +49%
- TGTHE GREAT LAKES HISTORICAL SOCIETY2× · 2022–2023 · $1.0M · revenue +39%
- SSSANDUSKY STATE THEATRE INC7× · 2018–2024 · $936k · revenue +224%
Funded once
- SPST PAUL CATHOLIC CHURCHone grant, 2017 · $245k
- MCMILAN CEMETERY ASSOCIATIONone grant, 2022 · $70k
- ELEDISON LOCAL SCHOOL DISTRICTone grant, 2017 · $51k
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.
Empowering and strengthening ohio's people (esop) helps adults in all stages of life achieve and maintain financial wellness and housing stability.
Helping individuals live with dignity through the final stage of life.
Ohio hills health services is a non-profit health care operation, organized by communities in eastern ohio to promote healthy lifestyles and to provide preventative and comprehensive medical and dental care for area residents. the primary…
The erie community foundation works to improve the quality of life for all in our region by evaluating and addressing community issues, building permanent charitable endowments, and by promoting philanthropic and community leadership.
To develop and implement a marketing plan to grow the region's tourism economy through promotion of the region and thereby increase visitor spending in the region.
The orrville united way improves lives by unitiing people and resources to advance the common good in orrville, dalton and marshallville in eastern wayne county ohio. our goal is to create long-lasting changes that prevent future problems…
To strengthen the capacity of United Ways across Ohio and to advance the common good for Ohioans.
The lorain county historical society collects, preserves, and shares the history of lorain county, ohio to educate and inspire present and future generations.
To lead and equip ohio philanthropy to be effective partners for change in our communities.
Erie homes for children and adults operates as a private, non-profit agency providing programs for individuals with intellectual and physical disabilities.
To advocate for an equitable ohio for people with disabilities.
A non-profit organization dedicated to the protection, restoration, enhancement, and sustainable development of the lake erie watershed in pennsylvania.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Erie County Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Downs On the Farm. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 35 years old; the field is 22. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 6% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
72 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 72 of the 170 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 WESTERN RESERVE LAND CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds THE GREAT LAKES HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds SANDUSKY STATE THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds SANDUSKY EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OH-GO ↗
- Who funds FIRELANDS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds ERIE COUNTY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CHARITABLE FUND ↗
- Who funds STEIN HOSPICE SERVICE INC ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF ERIE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds Bowling Green State University Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST FOODBANK OF NORTH CENTRAL OHIO ↗
- Who funds FIRELANDS HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF NORTHEAST OHIO ↗
- Who funds BACK TO THE WILD INC ↗
- Who funds EDISON BIRTHPLACE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds HOSPICE OF THE WESTERN RESERVE INC ↗
- Who funds THE MUSEUM OF CAROUSEL ART & HISTORY ↗
- Who funds CARE & SHARE INC OF ERIE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds FAMILY HEALTH SERVICES OF ERIE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds CANCER SERVICES FKA CANCER SERVICES OF ERIE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds The Sandusky Library and Follett House Museum Foundation ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF NORTHEAST OHIO EDUCATION COALITION ↗
- Who funds MILAN CEMETERY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds SAFE HARBOUR DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SHELTER INC ↗
- Who funds ERIE COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
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 Mylander Fdn-2001 · The Michelle Wightman-Karrie Wieber Charitable Foundation · Sidney Frohman Foundation · Randolph J and Estelle M Dorn Foundation · The Wm M & a Cafaro Family Foundation · The Cleveland Foundation · The Twenty First Century Foundation · The Nord Family Foundation · The Albert G & Olive H Schlink Foundation · Community Foundation of Lorain County · Sam S Stein and Rose Stein Foundation · Oneohio Recovery 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 Erie County Community 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.