How much does Gardner Foundation Incorporated give?

Gardner Foundation Incorporated reported 82 grants totaling $107,500 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 73 and 79 organizations a year over FY2021 to FY2024.

What does Gardner Foundation Incorporated fund?

By grant dollars over FY2021 to FY2025, its largest causes are Education (23%), Animals (18%), Environment (14%).

Who are Gardner Foundation Incorporated's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2021 to FY2025: Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy In ($26k), River Fields Inc ($23k), Kentucky Humane Society - Animal Rescue ($18k).

Does Gardner Foundation Incorporated fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 6% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Gardner Foundation Incorporated accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Where is Gardner Foundation Incorporated based?

Gardner Foundation Incorporated is based in KY.

Gardner Foundation Incorporated

Gardner Foundation Incorporated at a glance

· Private foundation

Gardner Foundation Incorporated

Q: Which funders back the same organizations as Gardner Foundation Incorporated?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include The Community Foundation of Louisville Inc, The Community Foundation of Louisville Depository Inc, The Community Foundation of Louisville Corporate Depository Inc.

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$108k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$7k

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2021 to 2025.

Education$114kAnimals$88kEnvironment$72kArts & Culture$61kReligion$59kHealth$29kRecreation & Sports$26kYouth Development$13kOther$0

02FY2025 · 82 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$1,000

Median grant

States reached

$1.6M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
Father John Judie Ministries Inc	$7,000
Olmsted Parks Conservancy Inc	$4,500
River Fields Inc	$4,500
Kentucky Humane Society	$4,000
Filson Historical Society	$4,000
Kimokeo Foundation	$4,000
Pa'ia Youth and Cultural Ctr	$4,000
Mission Wolf	$3,500
The Nature Conservancy	$2,500
Hosparus	$2,500
Dogs Helping Heroes	$2,000
Second Stride Inc	$2,000
Raptor Rehabilitation of Kentucky Inc	$2,000
Hildegard House	$2,000
Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest	$2,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY21–25, $21k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

98%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$476k · 79 repeat orgs$12k to everyone else

79 repeat relationships: 77 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$476k

$9k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+39%

+116%

Still filing today

57%

14%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

EducationAnimalsEnvironmentHuman ServicesArts & CultureHealthOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

RF
RIVER FIELDS INC
5× · 2021–2025 · $23k · revenue +30%
KH
KENTUCKY HUMANE SOCIETY - ANIMAL RESCUE
5× · 2021–2025 · $18k · revenue +61%
MW
MISSION WOLF
5× · 2021–2025 · $16k · revenue +62%

Funded once

SF
ST FRANCES OF ROME
one grant, 2024 · $2k
LF
Louisville Free Public Media
one grant, 2023 · $1k
SX
St Xavier High School
one grant, 2021 · $1k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

The Land Trust for Tennessee Inc

To conserve the unique character of tennessee's natural and historic landscapes and sites for future generations.

Environment

Kentucky Center for Economic Policy Inc

To improve the quality of life for all kentuckians through research, education and advocacy on important policy issues facing the commonwealth.

Public Benefit

Louisville Collegiate School

Louisville collegiate school inspires academic excellence, extraordinary character and global citizenship.

Education

Legacy Greenscapes Inc

Legacy greenscapes, inc. mission is to provide continuing leadership and financial support to preserve legacy of and promote greenscapes located in the city of winchester, clark county, ky.

Environment

Central Indiana Land Trust Incorporated

The central indiana land trust, inc. preserves the best of central indiana's natural areas, protecting plants and animals, so hoosiers can experience the wonder of the state's natural heritage.

Environment

Harpeth Conservancy

To restore and protect clean water and healthy ecosystems for rivers in tennessee by employing scientific expertise and collaborative relationships to develop, promote, and support broad community stewardship and action.

Environment

Columbus Zoological Park Association

Empowering people. saving wildlife.

Animals

Jefferson National Parks Association

Jefferson national parks association provides quality educational products and related services that enhance public understanding and appreciation of america's national parks, public lands and historic places.

Arts & Culture

Parks Alliance of Louisville Inc

Drive equitable investment in our public parks to improve the health and wellbeing of the entire community.

Environment

Kentucky Natural Lands Trust Inc

Kentucky natural lands trust works to protect, connect and restore wildlands with a commitment to safeguarding biodiversity, mitigating climate impacts and fostering healthy communities.

Environment

Tenngreen Land Conservancy

The organization's primary mission is conserving land where people and nature can thrive by creating green corridors linking existing public lands using conservation easments and outright purchase.

Recreation & Sports

University Family Physicians Inc

Engage actively and continuously in medical research, education and training in the practice of medicine in conjunction with the department of family medicine of the indiana university school of medicine and indiana university…

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Louisville Free Public Library Foundatio; the most unlike its peers is Paws With Purpose Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

50 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 50 of the 99 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

50/50

Grantees still filing

39/50

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$264,950Animals$65,250Environment$49,750Education$45,050Human Services$31,000Arts & Culture$25,350Recreation & Sports$18,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

The Community Foundation of Louisville IncKY70.3× affinity35 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Community Foundation of Louisville Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Depository Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Corporate Depository Inc · Snowy Owl Foundation Inc · The Gheens Foundation Inc · Cralle Foundation Inc · Baird Foundation Inc · Norton Healthcare Inc · W L Lyons Brown Foundation · Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels Inc · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · V V Cooke Foundation Corporation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Gardner Foundation Incorporated funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Gardner Foundation Incorporated. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

9report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

Play a game based on Gardner’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home