· Private foundation
Gershman Foundation (Formerly Gershman Charitable 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k19 grants · $56k
- $10k–50k23 grants · $339k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DOORWAYS | $50,000 |
| JEWISH FEDERATION OF ST LOUIS | $40,000 |
| JOHN BURROUGHS SCHOOL | $35,000 |
| AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF MISSOURI | $26,000 |
| SITEMAN CANCER CENTER | $25,000 |
| CENTRAL REFORM CONGREGATION | $25,000 |
| THE FOUNDATION FOR BARNES-JEWISH HOSPITAL | $15,000 |
| NINE PBS | $12,500 |
| AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION ST LOUIS | $10,000 |
| NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN ST LOUIS | $10,000 |
| HARVEY KORNBLUM JEWISH FOOD PANTRY | $10,000 |
| CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY GREATER ST LOUIS | $10,000 |
| ST LOUIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $10,000 |
| JEFFREY GERSHMAN GRADUATE STUDENT FUND (UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN) | $10,000 |
| EVANS SCHOLARS FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
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, $73k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +19% since the first grant, against +2% for the ones you funded once.
49 repeat relationships — 29 still active in FY2025, 20 since wound down; 13 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, 81% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $76k 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
- IRINTERFAITH RESIDENCE D/B/A DOORWAYS5× · 2021–2025 · $220k · revenue +28%
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY5× · 2021–2025 · $151k · revenue +21%- MFMAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF MISSOURI AND KANSAS5× · 2021–2025 · $50k · revenue +63%
Funded once
- CTCOMMUNITY TRANSITION PROGRAMone grant, 2021 · $10k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue -8%
- MHMISSOURI HISTORICAL SOCIETYone grant, 2024 · $10k · revenue 0%
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.
Mission: st. louis empowers individuals for social and economic growth through relationships and opportunity.
To promote the possibilities of charitable giving, helping charitable citizens understand how they can effectively provide for the community they love and the causes they care deeply about.
Greater st. louis, inc. brings together business and civic leaders to create jobs, drive inclusive economic growth, and increase the st. louis metro area's global competitiveness. we speak with a unified voice, lead with a bold agenda, and…
The saint louis zoo association was established to support and enhance the saint louis zoo by providing facilities, funds, and advice. the association provides direct financial support to the zoo for renovations, new facilities, programs,…
Founded in 1915, webster is a private non-profit and global university that is committed to delivering high-quality learning experiences that transform students for global citizenship and individual excellence.
Foster economic growth and improved quality of life in the st. louis area by producing events, enhancing its national and international image as a premier sports region, and increasing community awareness of the value of sports.
Thomas jefferson school engages its students in the education necessary to live as responsible citizens of the world. through the strongest possible college-prepatory program and within a nurturing community, students develop a…
To enable individuals with developmental disabilities to achieve the highest level of independent living and live a full and enriched life.
As an active partner, leader and catalyst, we will assist african americans, other minority groups and the disadvantaged attain social and economic equality and stability through direct services and advocacy.
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…
Avila university, a catholic university sponsored by saint joseph educational ministries, a ministerial public juridic person of the catholic church (sjem), is a values-based community of learning providing liberal arts, professional,…
Transforming lives through musical excellence. the goal of the st. louis children's choirs is to empower the youth of st. louis through a rich choral program that helps each young singer realize their full potential - as a musician and as…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of Missouri and Kansas and the most unlike its peers is Friends of Berrien County Animal Services. 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 49 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
54 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. 54 of the 99 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 Jewish Federation of St Louis ↗
- Who funds INTERFAITH RESIDENCE D/B/A DOORWAYS ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds JOHN BURROUGHS SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THE FOUNDATION FOR BARNES-JEWISH HOSPITAL ↗
- Who funds SAINT LOUIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF MISSOURI AND KANSAS ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN ST LOUIS SECTION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF MISSOURI ↗
- Who funds CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY OF GREATER ST LOUIS ↗
- Who funds Forest Park Forever Inc ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds ST LOUIS REGIONAL PUBLIC MEDIA INC ↗
- Who funds WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds FOCUS ST LOUIS ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds A MILLION STARS INC DBA COLLEGE BOUND ↗
- Who funds JAZZ ST LOUIS ↗
- Who funds Opera Theatre of Saint Louis ↗
- Who funds MUNICIPAL THEATRE ASSOCIATION OF ST LOUIS ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY - ST LOUIS ↗
- Who funds MISSOURI HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds URBAN LEAGUE OF METROPOLITAN ST LOUIS ↗
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: St Louis Community Foundation Inc · Centene Foundation · St Louis Community Foundation · Sam and Marilyn Fox Foundation · Trio Foundation of St Louis · United Way of Greater St Louis Inc · Employees Community Fund of the Boeing Company · Brown Dana Charitable Trust · Moneta Group Charitable Foundation · Edward Jones Foundation · World Wide Technology Foundation · The Kranzberg Family 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 Gershman Foundation (Formerly Gershman Charitable Trust) 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.
- Wesleyan University — 1% 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.