· Private foundation
Franklin H and Ruth L Wells Foundation
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 FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $8k
- $10k–50k13 grants · $204k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SALVATION ARMY | $50,000 |
| NEW HOPE MINISTRIES | $25,000 |
| PENN STATE UNIVERSITY HARRISBURG | $25,000 |
| UNITED WAY OF THE CAPITAL REGION | $20,000 |
| HOSPICE OF CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA | $20,000 |
| UNITED DISABILITIES SERVICES FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| MESSIAH UNIVERSITY | $15,000 |
| JOSHUA GROUP | $15,000 |
| BETHESDA MISSION | $15,000 |
| PAXTON MINISTRIES | $14,000 |
| HARRISBURG UNIVERSITY | $10,000 |
| WILDHEART INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES | $10,000 |
| THE NATIVITY SCHOOL OF HARRISBURG | $10,000 |
| MIDWEST FOOD BANK PENNSYLVANIA | $10,000 |
| ST STEPHEN'S EPISCOPAL SCHOOL | $8,000 |
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 (FY21–25, $134k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 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.
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.
24 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2025, 11 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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $23k 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
- TUTrine University4× · 2021–2024 · $148k · revenue +91%
- MUMESSIAH UNIVERSITY4× · 2021–2025 · $115k · revenue +12%
- TCTHE CAPITAL REGION LITERACY COUNCIL3× · 2022–2024 · $77k · revenue +56%
Funded once
- PSPenn State Healthgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $100k · revenue +60%
- MUMonmouth University PA Programone grant, 2022 · $30k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $26k
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.
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…
Upmc pinnacle hospitals mission as a charitable organization is dedicatied to maintaining and improving the health and quality of life for all persons of the central pennsylvania area.
Gettysburg college is a residential, undergraduate college of the liberal arts and sciences.
Founded in 1827, the pennsylvania horticultural society (phs) uses horticulture to advance the health and well-being of the greater philadelphia region. (continued in sch o)phs's work focuses on four impact priorities: creating healthy…
Our community-based and controlled health care system exists to improve regional access to a wide array of premier primary care and advanced health services while supporting a reverence for life and the worth and dignity of each individual.
The mission of penn highlands mon valley is to enhance the health of the residents of the mid-monongahela valley area by providing outstanding healthcare services.
Penn state health hampden medical center's mission is to continually improve the health and well-being of the people in pennsylvania. the organization provides patients with excellent, compassionate and culturally responsive and equitable…
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 of the harrisburg regional chamber is to be a catalyst for policy change, for job creation and for business growth in cumberland, dauphin, and perry counties that enhances the quality of life in our region.
To provide the patient with exceptional care through our community-based health system while maintaining a reverence for life. it's the vision of the system to be the integrated health system of choice through excellent quality, service…
The mission of penn state health holy spirit medical center is to nurture the healing ministry of the church, supported by education and research. fidelity to the gospel urges us to emphasize human dignity and social justice as we create…
The pennsylvania chamber of business and industry is the largest broad-based business association in pennsylvania. thousands of members throughout the commonwealth employ greater than 50 percent of pennsylvania's private workforce.…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Dauphin County Library System and the most unlike its peers is Hospice of Central Pennsylvania. 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 43 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% 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 8% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 35 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 Trine University ↗
- Who funds MESSIAH UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Penn State Health ↗
- Who funds THE CAPITAL REGION LITERACY COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF THE CAPITAL REGION ↗
- Who funds MIDWEST FOOD BANK NFP ↗
- Who funds THE JOSHUA GROUP ↗
- Who funds DAUPHIN COUNTY LIBRARY SYSTEM ↗
- Who funds VETERANS OUTREACH OF PENNSYLVANIA ↗
- Who funds NEW HOPE MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds HOSPICE OF CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA ↗
- Who funds THE NATIVITY SCHOOL OF HARRISBURG ↗
- Who funds THE SUSQUEHANNA CHORALE INC ↗
- Who funds THE ARC OF CUMBERLAND AND PERRY COUNTIES ↗
- Who funds PAXTON STREET HOME BENEVOLENT SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds UNITED DISABILITIES SERVICES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WILDHEART ↗
- Who funds HARRISBURG AREA COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GAUDENZIA INC ↗
- Who funds THE VISTA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HISTORICAL SOCIETY DAUPHIN COUNTY ↗
- Who funds Make-A-Wish Foundation of Greater PA and West Virginia Inc ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA FRIENDS OF JAZZ ↗
- Who funds HARRISBURG SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds PERRY COUNTY COUNCIL OF THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds MUSIC AT GRETNA 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: The Foundation for Enhancing Communities · The S Wilson and Grace M Pollock Foundation · McCormick Family Fdn Agent 80397 · The Donald B and Dorothy L Stabler Foundation · Joseph T and Helen M Simpson Foundation · John Crain Kunkel Foundation · Anne & Philip Glatfelter III Family Foundation · United Way of the Capital Region · Alexander and Jane Boyd Ta Foundation · Kenneth Bankert Foundation Inc · Hall Foundation · Lawrence L & Julia Z Hoverter 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 Franklin H and Ruth L Wells 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.