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Gerald L Ford Irr Trust at a glance

· Private foundation

Gerald L Ford Irr Trust

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.

$32k
Granted FY2025still arriving
5
Grants FY2025still arriving
4
States reached
$8k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Human Services$140kPublic Benefit$124kMembership Benefit$22k
02FY2025 · 5 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$7,909
Median grant
4
States reached
$645k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
THE AMERICAN LEGION$7,909
VFW NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS$7,909
DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS$7,909
AMERICAN LEGION POST 49$3,955
VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS POST$3,955
02The need
03

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:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 61% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 13%VFW NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS: $12k → 15%AMERICAN LEGION NATL HEADQUARTERS: $11k → 16%VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS POST: $6k → 12%DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS: $12k → 11%VFW OF THE US HEADQUARTERS: $11k → 15%AMERICAN LEGION NATL HEADQUARTERS: $9k → 16%AMERICAN LEGION POST 49: $5k → 12%DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS: $8k → 11%VFW OF THE US HEADQUARTERS: $9k → 15%AMERICAN LEGION NATL HEADQUARTERS: $9k → 16%VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS POST 6710: $5k → 12%DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS: $7k → 11%VFW OF THE US HEADQUARTERS: $9k → 15%AMERICAN LEGION NATL HEADQUARTERS: $8k → 16%VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS POST 6710: $5k → 12%VFW NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS: $8k → 15%AMERICAN LEGION NATL HEADQUARTERS: $7k → 16%AMERICAN LEGION POST 49: $5k → 12%VFW OF THE US HEADQUARTERS: $8k → 15%THE AMERICAN LEGION: $17k → 16%VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS POST 6710: $5k → 12%VFW NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS: $7k → 15%THE AMERICAN LEGION: $8k → 16%AMERICAN LEGION POST 49: $5k → 12%VFW OF THE US HEADQUARTERS: $7k → 15%THE AMERICAN LEGION: $7k → 16%AMERICAN LEGION POST 49: $4k → 12%VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS POST: $4k → 12%VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS POST 6710: $4k → 12%AMERICAN LEGION POST 49: $4k → 12%AMERICAN LEGION POST 49: $4k → 12%VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS POST: $4k → 12%VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS POST 6710: $4k → 12%AMERICAN LEGION POST 49: $4k → 12%AMERICAN LEGION POST 49: $1k → 12%0%20%40%50%more need →
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.
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.

100%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$286k · 9 repeat orgs$0 to everyone else

9 repeat relationships: 5 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

9
0

Total granted

$286k
$0

Still filing today

56%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time
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

  • VO
    Veterans of Foreign Wars of The United States
    3× · 2023–2025 · $27k · revenue +16%
  • DA
    Disabled American Veterans
    3× · 2023–2025 · $27k · revenue +0%
  • VO
    VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS POST 6710
    5× · 2017–2021 · $22k · revenue +253%

Funded once

    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
    04the grantee network

    5 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. 5 of the 9 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.

    0
    Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
    1
    Early backer (in before they grew)
    5/5
    Grantees still filing
    3/5
    Grew since first funded

    Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

    DAV NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS: $44,031 · OtherDAV NATIONAL HEADQUARTERSVFW OF THE US HEADQUARTERS: $44,030 · OtherVFW OF THE US HEADQUARTERSLeo F Welch Jr Post 495 American Legion Dept of Indiana Inc: $44,029 · OtherLeo F Welch Jr Post 495 American Legion Dept of Indiana IncThe American Legion: $32,265 · OtherThe American LegionAMERICAN LEGION POST 49: $30,834 · OtherAMERICAN LEGION POST 49Veterans of Foreign Wars of The United States: $27,390 · OtherVeterans of Foreign Wars of The United StatesDisabled American Veterans: $27,390 · OtherDisabled American VeteransVETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS POST 6710: $22,015 · OtherVETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS POST 6710VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS POST: $13,696 · Other
    Other$285,680

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

    25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetLeo F Welch Jr Post 495 American Legion Dept of Indiana Inc: $44,029 over 5y, 14% of budgetThe American Legion: $32,265 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetVeterans of Foreign Wars of The United States: $27,390 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetDisabled American Veterans: $27,390 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetVETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS POST 6710: $22,015 over 5y, 7.0% of budget
    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.

    • Who funds Leo F Welch Jr Post 495 American Legion Dept of Indiana Inc ↗
    • Who funds The American Legion ↗
    • Who funds Veterans of Foreign Wars of The United States ↗
    • Who funds Disabled American Veterans ↗
    • Who funds VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS POST 6710 ↗

    How much its grantees rely on government

    Each dot is one organization Gerald L Ford Irr Trust funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Gerald L Ford Irr Trust. Bigger dots raise more.

    2023
    ’20’21’22’23’24’25
    no gov · 00%1%4%8%15%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
      no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
      0get no government money at all
      0rely on government for over half their income
      ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
      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.

      On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 9 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

      How this is measured
      Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

      Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

      Source object · view filing

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      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