· Private foundation
Essman Family Charitable Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $4,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $504 |
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 (FY18–22, $23k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 7% 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.
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 +44% since the first grant, against +5% for the ones you funded once.
36 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2024, 34 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- JCJEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER2× · 2018–2020 · $15k · revenue +13%
- MUMaryville University - St Louis5× · 2017–2021 · $11k · revenue +38%
- JFJEWISH FAMILY SERVICES OF ST LOUIS4× · 2018–2022 · $6k · revenue +8%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $10k
- JOJCC OF STL ATTN LYNN WITTELSone grant, 2021 · $5k
- AFAMERICAN FRIENDS OF MAGEN DAVID ADOMone grant, 2023 · $3k · revenue -51%
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.
Jewish federation of st. louis mobilizes the jewish community and its human and financial resources to preserve and enhance jewish life in st. louis, in israel and around the world.
To create an informed, celebratory and satisfying jewish community for students at the university of southern california, to deepen jewish identity through social, intellectual and spiritual participation, to offer diversified…
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…
The jewish agency binds jews across ideologies and civilizations together in a worldwide jewish family with israel at its center. it provides the global framework for aliyah, ensures global jewish safety, strengthens jewish identity and…
Mitchell hamline school of law is an independent law school that advances its mission through a combination of legal education, public service, and community engagement. it is dedicated to preparing students to practice law, while also…
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…
The st. louis jewish light is a non-profit, independent news source whose mission is to inform, inspire, educate, and connect the st. louis jewish community.
Minneapolis jewish federation is a nonprofit organization that promotes a culture of philanthropy, leverages resources to meet local and global jewish needs, and facilitates community planning to ensure a thriving and secure future.
Biu produces students who excel in the sciences, humanities, law, engineering, business & the arts.
University of the sciences prepares students to become leaders, innovators, and skilled practitioners in the sciences, the health professions, and related disciplines. we deliver excellence in teaching, research, and service through a safe…
The shalom hartman institute (shi) is a leading research and educational center serving israel and world jewry. we work to enrich the moral and spiritual life of israel and the jewish people, deepen the commitment to pluralism and israel's…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jewish Family Services of St Louis and the most unlike its peers is Camp for All Kids. 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 24. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% 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.
40 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. 40 of the 77 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 JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds Maryville University - St Louis ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FAMILY SERVICES OF ST LOUIS ↗
- Who funds LOGOS INC ↗
- Who funds ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds CITY ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds Planned Parenthood Great Rivers-Missouri ↗
- Who funds THE ST LOUIS CHILDREN'S CHOIRS ↗
- Who funds HIAS INC ↗
- Who funds SAINT LOUIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF MAGEN DAVID ADOM ↗
- Who funds Camp Kesem National ↗
- Who funds HOMES FOR OUR TROOPS INC ↗
- Who funds Camp for All Kids ↗
- Who funds OXFAM-AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds 350ORG ↗
- Who funds COLUMBIABARNARD HILLEL INC ↗
- Who funds CAMP RAINBOW FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HILLEL AT WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST LOUIS ↗
- Who funds Life After Hate Inc ↗
- Who funds Trustees of Tufts College ↗
- Who funds WORLD WILDLIFE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds GALAPAGOS CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE ↗
- Who funds HILLEL FOUNDATION AT TUFTS UNIVERSITY 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: St Louis Community Foundation Inc · Jewish Federation of St Louis · St Louis Community Foundation · World Wide Technology Foundation · Gallop Family Foundation · Sam and Marilyn Fox Foundation · United Way of Greater St Louis Inc · Commerce Bancshares Foundation · The William R Orthwein Jr and Laura Rand Orthwein Foundation Inc · The Goldstein Family Foundation · Pott Foundation · The Kranzberg Family Charitable 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 Essman Family Charitable 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.
- Hias Inc — 88% of income from government
- Trustees of Tufts College — 13% of income from government
- Oxfam-America Inc — 0% of income from government
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.