· Private foundation
Fairfax Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k20 grants · $55k
- $10k–50k22 grants · $545k
- $50k–250k9 grants · $765k
- $250k+5 grants · $3.3M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY SCHOOL | $750,000 |
| URBAN SQUASH CLEVELAND | $750,000 |
| URBAN COMMUNITY SCHOOL | $750,000 |
| HATHAWAY BROWN SCHOOL | $750,000 |
| OUR FAMILY SERVICES | $250,000 |
| TREES WATER & PEOPLE | $215,000 |
| EMERGE | $200,000 |
| THE KIVA CENTER | $50,000 |
| PARKINSON'S FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| HUNTINGTON'S DISEASE SOCIETY OF AMERICA | $50,000 |
| SEPTEMBER SCHOOL | $50,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $50,000 |
| GOD'S VAST RESOURCES | $50,000 |
| PACHAMAMA ALLIANCE | $50,000 |
| GOSPEL RESCUE MISSION INC | $47,447 |
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, $64k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
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.
16 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2024, 10 since wound down; 50 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, 55% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.1M 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
- UCURBAN COMMUNITY SCHOOL7× · 2018–2024 · $824k · revenue +164%
- HBHATHAWAY BROWN SCHOOL7× · 2018–2024 · $815k · revenue +1%
- TWTREES WATER AND PEOPLE7× · 2018–2024 · $308k · revenue +149%
Funded once
- JFJUDSON FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $10k · revenue +152%
- USUNIVERSITY SCHOOL ANNUAL FUNDone grant, 2018 · $10k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $1k
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.
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…
Global cleveland is dedicated to growing northeast ohio's economy by welcoming and connecting international people to opportunities and fostering a more inviting community for those seeking a place to call home.
People inc. provides health and human services that enrich lives and communities through innovation and supportive services. with a goal to help people achieve greater independence and quality of life, people inc. provides day,…
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
To serve our communities by provding innovative and compassionate healthcare.
The organization provides medical care to improve, maintain, and restore the health of the people in the communities we serve.
Support significant improvements in health care delivery and outcomes within the context of nonprofit, charitable ownership.
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…
Mercy Health will provide assistance, support and direction to all of the health care institutions and activities operated and maintained by its Subsidiaries. The mission of Mercy Health in performing these activities shall be to provide a…
United way of central ohio is the local organization that harnesses the power of communities working together - people, nonprofits, businesses and government - to create a stronger, more equitable central ohio. see schedule o.we do this…
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Urban Community School and the most unlike its peers is Grasp Inc. 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 46 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
42 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. 42 of the 69 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 URBAN COMMUNITY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds HATHAWAY BROWN SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds URBAN SQUASH CLEVELAND ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds TREES WATER AND PEOPLE ↗
- Who funds Our Family Services Inc ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds GODS VAST RESOURCES ↗
- Who funds The Pachamama Alliance ↗
- Who funds PARKINSON'S FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds September School Inc ↗
- Who funds THE KIVA CENTER ↗
- Who funds HUNTINGTON'S DISEASE SOCIETY OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds LAKEVIEW CEMETERY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF GREATER OHIO ↗
- Who funds HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds GRIEF SUPPORT NETWORK ↗
- Who funds CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE ASSOCIATION OF CLEVELAND OHIO ↗
- Who funds Vive ↗
- Who funds NEIGHBOR TO NEIGHBOR INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER CLEVELAND FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds THE MICHAEL J FOX FOUNDATION FOR PARKINSON'S RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN 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: Colorado Gives Foundation · Fred a Lennon Charitable Trust · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Endowment Foundation · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Fairfax 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.
- Wounded Warrior Project 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Fairfax Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Fairfax 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.