· Private foundation
Graef Foundation Inc
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 63% of GRAEF FOUNDATION INC’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k9 grants · $32k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON | $25,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| UWM FOUNDATION | $8,000 |
| MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY | $6,000 |
| SHARP LITERACY INC | $5,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN PLATTEVILLE | $3,000 |
| MILWAUKEE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING | $3,000 |
| ACE MENTOR PROGRAM OF ILLINOIS | $3,000 |
| STEM FORWARD INC | $1,500 |
| AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS INC WISCONSIN SECTION | $1,500 |
| KIDS BUILDING WISCONSIN | $1,000 |
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 (FY22–24, $12k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, 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.
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.
11 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 2 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- UOUNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN FOUNDATION4× · 2020–2024 · $34k · revenue +29%
- MUMarquette University6× · 2017–2024 · $24k · revenue +46%
THE UWM FOUNDATION INC4× · 2021–2024 · $22k · revenue +48%
Funded once
- AMACE Mentor Program of Greater Milwaukeeone grant, 2022 · $2k
- MSMSOE-American Society of Civil Engineersone grant, 2017 · $2k
- FCFoundations College Prepone grant, 2018 · $1k
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.
See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.
To advance the knowledge and practice of engineering in the public interest. To provide member societies with reliable information that affects the engineering profession. To provide a forum for engineering societies to exchange views on…
Promote the practice of civil engineering.
The nstmf's mission is to build inclusive stem communities across the united states. fundamental to these communities are the significant, inspirational connections we foster between the individuals who have received national recognition…
The umcoe foundation provides gap-filling resources to help mizzou's college of engineering continue its quest for excellence in meeting current and future challenges during a period when state budgets have been drastically restricted for…
The niu foundation's mission is to energize and connect the private sector with the niu community to secure and steward resources that support the future and growth of niu.
The mission of women in technology is to attract, grow, and retain women of all ages in technology-related careers. wit collaborates with professionals, companies, and communities to help women in technology of all ages and stages - from…
To provide engineering scholarships and support mathematics education.
To provide a solid base of educational and research programs that will allow deserving students the chance to pursue their dreams of a career in construction.
Western new england university, a comprehensive private institution with a tradition of excellence in teaching and scholarship and a commitment to service, awards undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees in various departments from…
To further the study of pulp and paper science and engineering at uwsp by providing financial assistance to students, and opportunity for alumni and leaders to strengthen the pulp and paper science program, encouraging students to enroll…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Uwm Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Sharp Literacy Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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. 9 of the 19 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 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Marquette University ↗
- Who funds THE UWM FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ↗
- Who funds SHARP LITERACY INC ↗
- Who funds ACE MENTOR PROGRAM OF ILLINOIS INC ↗
- Who funds STEM FORWARD INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS Wisconsin Section ↗
- Who funds KIDS BUILDING WISCONSIN 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 set of overlaps that mostly run through you, not between each other.
Open a dossier: Greater Milwaukee 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 Graef Foundation Inc 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 Graef Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Graef Foundation Inc 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.