· Private foundation
Garton Family 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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SHEBOYGAN PUBLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATI | $6,500 |
| ELKHART LAKE GLENBEULAH FOUNDATION | $4,445 |
| EL-G EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $4,250 |
| PARTNERS FOR COMMUNICATION DEV | $3,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,000 |
| LAKESHORE CHORALE | $3,000 |
| BOOKWORM GARDENS | $3,000 |
| FRIENDS OF BROUGHTON SHEBOYGAN MARS | $3,000 |
| EASTER SEALS WISCONSIN | $3,000 |
| SUMMIT PLAYERS THEATRE | $3,000 |
| SHEBOYGAN CO INTERFAITH ORG | $3,000 |
| ELKART LAKE EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $2,742 |
| FOUNDATIONS HEALTH AND WHOLENESS | $2,500 |
| BIG BROTHER BIG SISTERS | $2,500 |
| HMONG MUTUAL ASSISTANCE ASSOCIATION | $2,500 |
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 (FY20–25, $26k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 8% 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 +78% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
24 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 14 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, 46% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $39k 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
- SPSHEBOYGAN PUBLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC6× · 2020–2025 · $42k · revenue +368%
- BGBOOKWORM GARDENS INC5× · 2020–2025 · $23k · revenue +94%
- SCSheboygan County YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION INC5× · 2020–2024 · $16k · revenue +60%
Funded once
- BBBIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS WIone grant, 2024 · $5k
- AMA MILLION DREAMZ INCgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $5k · revenue +278%
- VGVIRGINIA GARTON SCHOLARSHIP FUNDone grant, 2023 · $5k
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.
Obtain and manage land of ecological significance.
The door county land trust is a local, non-governmental non-profit organization whose mission is to preserve door county's exceptional lands and waters forever.
Pathways of wisconsin provides supported employment opportunities and empowerment through quality, person-centered programming for individuals of all abilities.
Promote sheboygan county business development.
Wisconsin youth company's mission is to engage youth in opportunities to encourage them to be their best selves.
Legal protection and advocacy to protect the rights of people with disabilities in wisconsin.
None
Provide a collaborative talent development system within the region.
Our mission is to provide efficient, progressive financial services and products to our owner-members in agreement with credit union philosophy
The mission of the sheboygan county economic development corporation (scedc), a countywide private/public partnership, is to lead economic development efforts to improve the economic well-being and long-term prosperity of the businesses,…
Wisconsin progress recruits, trains, elects, and develops progressive candidates and leaders at the local and state legislative levels.
To provide and operate a retirement home, health care center, and related services in the greater sheboygan area for elderly and physically handicapped adults, which shall enhance, honor and preserve the dignity of the individual, and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Big Brothers Big Sisters Wi Shoreline Inc and the most unlike its peers is Summit Players Theatre. 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 29 years old; the field is 22. 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 — 7% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
25 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. 25 of the 64 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 SHEBOYGAN PUBLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds BOOKWORM GARDENS INC ↗
- Who funds Sheboygan County YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds SUMMIT PLAYERS THEATRE ↗
- Who funds LAKESHORE CHORALE INC ↗
- Who funds REINS INC ↗
- Who funds DOWN SYNDROME ASSOCIATION OF CHILDREN OF THE HEART-GREATER LACROSSE AREA INC ↗
- Who funds EASTER SEALS WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS WI SHORELINE INC ↗
- Who funds THE FRIENDS OF THE BROUGHTON ↗
- Who funds SHEBOYGAN COUNTY HISTORICAL RESEARCH CENTERINC ↗
- Who funds SHEBOYGAN COUNTY FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds A MILLION DREAMZ INC ↗
- Who funds Wisconsin Recovery Community Organization Inc ↗
- Who funds GLACIAL LAKES CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds SHEBOYGAN COUNTY INTERFAITH ORGANIZATION INC ↗
- Who funds PLYMOUTH EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SHEBOYGAN THEATRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds Dogs to Dog Tags 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: Frank G & Frieda K Brotz Family Foundation Inc · Green Bay Packers Foundation · Fk Bemis Family Foundation Inc · Kohler Foundation Inc · Alliant Energy Foundation Inc · Hayssen Family Foundation Inc · Wm Collins Kohler Foundation Inc · United Way of Sheboygan County Inc · Lakeshore Community Foundation Inc · Ruth St John & John Dunham West Foundation Inc · Herbert H Kohl Charities Inc · Baird Foundation Inc
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 Garton Family 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.
- Best Buddies International Inc — 4% 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 Garton Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Garton Family 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.