· Private foundation
Ferree 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k6 grants · $29k
- $10k–50k15 grants · $290k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $400k
- $250k+1 grant · $400k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FRANKLIN & MARSHALL COLLEGE | $400,000 |
| FRANKLIN & MARSHALL COLLEGE | $100,000 |
| FULTON THEATRE | $100,000 |
| LANCASTER COUNTY FOOD HUB | $50,000 |
| SAMARITAN COUNSELING CENTER | $50,000 |
| LANCASTER COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL | $50,000 |
| LANCASTERLEBANON HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | $50,000 |
| NORTH MUSEUM | $40,000 |
| CENTRAL MARKET TRUST | $30,000 |
| LOWER SUSQUEHANNA RIVERKEEPER ASSOCIATION | $25,000 |
| HOPE INSPIRE LOVE | $25,000 |
| LANCASTER SCIENCE FACTORY | $22,880 |
| OXFORD AREA HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION | $20,000 |
| PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN | $20,000 |
| GOOD SAMARITAN SERVICES | $16,920 |
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 (FY18–24, $134k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 6% 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 +38% since the first grant, against +20% for the ones you funded once.
48 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2024, 36 since wound down; 15 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, 74% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $293k 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
- LLANCASTERHISTORYORG5× · 2017–2021 · $750k · revenue +203%
- LCLANCASTER COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL7× · 2017–2024 · $354k · revenue +55%
- CFCOMMUNITY FIRST FUND3× · 2020–2022 · $150k · revenue +218%
Funded once
- UCUNION COMMUNITY CAREgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $50k · revenue +106%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $50k
- SASPANISH AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION FOR EQUALITY INCone grant, 2022 · $50k · revenue +24%
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.
To enrich the quality of life in Lancaster County by building vibrant and inclusive communities connecting arts, culture, education, and economic vitality.
The lancaster chamber of commerce & industry's mission is to create the environment, facilitate partnerships, and lead on issues that elevate business success. the chamber has 5 strategic priorities: public policy, workforce, business…
Empowering people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (i/dd) and their families to lead full, satisfying, independent lives of their choice.
Lancaster county academy's mission is to empower non-traditional learners to achieve academic success, career readiness and personal growth through flexible, student-centered programs that values independence, resilience, and real-world…
Provide resources, services, and expertise in a collaborative manner to and with the member libraries in order to effectively serve our communities
Our mission is success through lifelong learning and learning for life. our vision is for adults to have the skills to transform their lives, sustain their families and strengthen their communities.
To advocate for and provide quality services to people with developmental disabilities and ensure their health, safety and welfare while promoting personal choice and growth.
Lancaster equity coordinates efforts to advance communities where everyone has an opportunity to thrive, whether that be through neighborhood revitalization, living wage work, entrepreneurship, or safe and affordable housing.
The mission of the adamstown library is to maintain and improve the quality of life in our community by providing access to cultural, intellectual, and informational resources and programs to promote life-long learning for all ages. the…
The mission is to facilitate the unfolding of each child's unique potential through an outstanding montessori education that enables a child to meet future challenges, and that encourages a love of learning, independent thinking, social…
Gettysburg college is a residential, undergraduate college of the liberal arts and sciences.
The lancaster community library is a center for the cultural, intellectual, and recreational pursuits of the community. through its materials, programs, and services, the library promotes literacy, provides lifetime learning opportunities,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Lancaster General Health Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Little Conestoga Creek Foundation. 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 38 years old; the field is 16. 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 9% 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.
63 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. 63 of the 100 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 FRANKLIN & MARSHALL COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds LANCASTERHISTORYORG ↗
- Who funds WORLD OF SCOUTING MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds ELIZABETHTOWN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER SCIENCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FIRST FUND ↗
- Who funds NORTH MUSEUM CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAN CENTER ↗
- Who funds FULTON THEATRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER COUNTY FOOD HUB ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER AREA HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF LANCASTER COUNTY ↗
- Who funds Music for Everyone ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER PUBLIC LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds UNION COMMUNITY CARE ↗
- Who funds SPANISH AMERICAN CIVIC ASSOCIATION FOR EQUALITY INC ↗
- Who funds KEYSTONE HUMAN SERVICES ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER FARMLAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds ARCH STREET CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER COUNTY CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER CLEFT PALATE CLINIC ↗
- Who funds ADVANTAGE LANCASTER ↗
- Who funds PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGN ↗
- Who funds MIDPENN LEGAL SERVICES ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL MARKET TRUST ↗
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: Lancaster County Community Foundation · Clark Associates Charitable Foundation · The Steinman Foundation · High Foundation · Willis and Elsie Shenk Foundation · United Way of Lancaster County · Thomas a and Georgina T Russo Foundation · Fulton Family Foundation · The Abigail L Longenecker Memorial Foundation · Richard S & Ann B Barshinger Family Fdn · Pryor E & Arlene R Neuber Charitable Trust · Ppl 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 Ferree 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 Ferree Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Ferree 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.