· Private foundation
Freeman Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2019–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k29 grants · $460k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ROCK IT OUT | $40,000 |
| CLEVELAND METROPARKS ZOO | $25,000 |
| IDEASTREAM | $25,000 |
| CLEVELAND METROPARKS | $25,000 |
| NEWBRIDGE CLEVELAND CENTER FOR ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY | $20,000 |
| LEGAL AID OF CLEVELAND | $20,000 |
| EDWINS FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| THE MUSIC SETTLEMENT | $20,000 |
| THE GATHERING PLACE | $15,000 |
| OHIO CITY BICYCLE CO-OP (OCBC) | $15,000 |
| CLEVELAND RAPE CRISIS CENTER (CRCC) | $15,000 |
| FIRST TEE | $15,000 |
| MAGNOLIA CLUBHOUSE | $15,000 |
| PALS FOR HEALING | $15,000 |
| CCF LGPTQ CARE | $15,000 |
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 (FY22–25, $275k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 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.
30 repeat relationships — 26 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down; 4 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, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $35k 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
- RIROCK IT OUT INC4× · 2022–2025 · $150k · revenue +31% · 33% of their budget
- CZCLEVELAND ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY3× · 2023–2025 · $90k · revenue +9%
- MCMAGNOLIA CLUBHOUSE INC4× · 2022–2025 · $60k · revenue +76%
Funded once
- IINDIEGOGOone grant, 2019 · $59k
CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITYone grant, 2023 · $50k · revenue +14%- CCCLEVELAND CLINIC - HNI INOVATIONSone grant, 2023 · $50k
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.
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.
Literary Cleveland assists writers and readers at all stages of development, promotes new and existing literature of the highest quality, and advances Northeast Ohio as a vital center of diverse voices and visions.
Cal champions creative learning, drives educational innovation, and transforms lives through collaborative efforts involving teaching artists, students, educators, and communities.
Empower the people of greater cleveland to achieve success through technology, innovation and connected community.
Greater cleveland volunteers enriches the community and indivuduals through volunteer service. volunteers age 18 and older are recruited and placed in the agency's programs or referred to local nonprofit or public organizations to help…
Provides innovative education in a dynamic urban setting. dedicated to academic excellence and community engagement,we prepare students of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skill,and experience to lead meaningful lives as informed…
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…
The mission of cleveland leadership center (the organization) is to build a continuum of civic leaders committed to our community's excellence by serving as a catalyst for civic engagement. the organization achieves its mission by…
Our mission is to attract, engage and retain emerging diverse talent to Greater Cleveland.
Our mission is to promote a just and peaceful community by honoring all people, building their capacity to act, and facilitating opportunities for them to engage in conflict constructively. We continue to fulfill our mission by…
To create fair, intelligent, redemptive criminal justice systems through zealous client-centered advocacy, innovative policy reform and cross-sector community education.
Diabetes partnership of cleveland works to provide relevant and sustainable programming, education, resources and supplies to the community in northeast ohio affected by diabetes.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Cleveland Public Theatre Inc and the most unlike its peers is Marilyns Voice 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 22 years old; the field is 22. You back the younger 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 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.
29 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. 29 of the 49 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 ROCK IT OUT INC ↗
- Who funds CLEVELAND ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds GREATER CLEVELAND FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY CATALYST PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds MAGNOLIA CLUBHOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds EDWINS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds IDEASTREAM ↗
- Who funds THE CLEVELAND MUSIC SCHOOL SETTLEMENT ↗
- Who funds CLEVELAND CENTER FOR ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY ↗
- Who funds PALS FOR HEALING ↗
- Who funds THE GATHERING PLACE ↗
- Who funds COLORS PLUS ↗
- Who funds THE MARSHALL PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds SEEDS OF LITERACY ↗
- Who funds CLEVELAND PUBLIC THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds OHIO CITY BICYCLE COOP INC ↗
- Who funds MARILYNS VOICE INC ↗
- Who funds YOUTH OPPORTUNITIES UNLIMITED ↗
- Who funds TOWARDS EMPLOYMENT INC ↗
- Who funds RESOURCE CLEVELAND ↗
- Who funds KARAMU HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds Playhouse Square Foundation ↗
- Who funds CHILD CARE RESOURCE CENTER OF CUYAHOGA COUNTY ↗
- Who funds PRETERM CLEVELAND 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 Cleveland Foundation · Treu Mart Fund · The Char and Chuck Fowler Family Foundation · The George Gund Foundation · Higley Fund of the Cleveland Foundation · The Reinberger Foundation · The Swagelok Foundation · Jewish Federation of Cleveland · The Leonetticarlson Family Foundation · George Codrington Fdnhirtlena · Thomas H White Fdn Ta · The Abington 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 Freeman 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 Freeman Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Freeman 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.