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Plinth

· Private foundation

Helen W Poffenbarger and Perry S Poffenbarger Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$132k
Granted FY2024still arriving
9
Grants FY2024still arriving
1
States reached
$35k
Largest
01What you fund
01100% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY20192024.

Education$473kFood & Nutrition$68kEmployment$67kHuman Services$60kYouth Development$58kArts & Culture$10kRecreation & Sports$10k
02FY2024 · 9 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k3 grants · $17k
  • $10k–50k6 grants · $115k
$10,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$1.5M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
BEN FRANKLIN VOCATIONAL CENTER$35,000
WV STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION$30,000
UNIVERSITY OF CHARLESTON$20,000
BOB BURDETTE CENTER INC$10,000
SALVATION ARMY BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF CHARLESTON WV$10,000
BACKPACKBUDDYORG$10,000
EDUCATION ELEVATORS FDN$7,500
SHAWNEE PARK FOUNDATION INC$5,000
DUNBAR - INSTITUTE SAMARITAN CENTER$4,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY19–24, $78k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 15%. 87% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 15%ARTS IN ACTION INC: $5k → 10%ARTS IN ACTION INC: $5k → 10%DUNBAR - INSTITUTE SAMARITAN CENTER: $4k → 18%DUNBAR - INSTITUTE SAMARITAN CENTER: $4k → 18%BOB BURDETTE CENTER INC: $10k → 18%BOB BURDETTE CENTER INC: $10k → 18%BOB BURDETTE CENTER INC: $10k → 18%BOB BURDETTE CENTER INC: $10k → 18%BOB BURDETTE CENTER INC: $10k → 18%BOB BURDETTE CENTER INC: $10k → 18%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

100%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$745k · 14 repeat orgs$0 to everyone else

14 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 5 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

14
0

Total granted

$745k
$0

Still filing today

50%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’19’20’21’22’23’24
Human ServicesEducationFood & NutritionRecreation & SportsOther

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

  • BB
    BOB BURDETTE CENTER INC
    6× · 2019–2024 · $60k · revenue +27%
  • BI
    BACKPACKBUDDYORG INC
    6× · 2019–2024 · $52k · revenue +76%
  • EE
    EDUCATION ELEVATORS FOUNDATION INC
    6× · 2019–2024 · $38k · revenue +60%

Funded once

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

    04Your field

    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.

    1
    Southwest Virginia Public

    Education assistance

    2
    Food for Kids

    The primary mission is to provide supplementary food during the school for food-insecure students located in bedford county virginia

    Human Services
    3
    Berkeley County Backpack Program Inc

    Provide food for underprivileged school children.

    Food & Nutrition
    4
    Binda Dyslexia Center
    5
    Wvu Forestry Endowment Fund of the Wvu Forestry Alumni Association

    Maintenance of the wvu school of forestry endowment fund

    6
    Louisville Winston Ed Foundation

    Kindergarten thru 12th grade school

    Education
    7
    Back Pack for Kids

    Provide food for school age children.

    Philanthropy
    8
    Wyoming County Toy Fund Inc

    To provide toys during christmas for underprivilaged children in wyoming county, wv.

    Human Services
    9
    West Va Farm Bureau Foundation Inc

    Sponsor agricultural education programs for students and the general public.

    Education
    10
    Helping Others Progress through Education Inc

    Charity and Education

    Health
    11
    Central Child Care of Wv

    Supervision of child care providers

    Human Services
    12
    Boomerang Backpacks Inc

    To nourish low income elementary students on weekends by providing backpacks full of food, and to inspire high school students to experience community service through project based learning and student internships.

    Human Services

    For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Education Elevators Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Dunbar-Institute Samaritan Center 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

    7 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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 7 of the 14 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.

    0
    Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
    3
    Early backer (in before they grew)
    7/7
    Grantees still filing
    4/7
    Grew since you first funded

    Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

    WV STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION — $180,000 · OtherWV STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATIONBEN FRANKLIN VOCATIONAL CENTER — $70,000 · OtherBEN FRANKLIN VOCATIONAL CENTERGARNET CAREER CENTER — $67,000 · OtherGARNET CAREER CENTERKANAWHA COUNTY SCHOOLS — $65,000 · OtherKANAWHA COUNTY SCHOOLSSALVATION ARMY BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF CHARLESTON WV — $37,500 · OtherSALVATION ARMY BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF CHARLESTON WVSHAWNEE PARK YOUTH DEVELOPMENT — $20,000 · Other+1 more — $8,000 · OtherTHE UNIVERSITY OF CHARLESTON INC — $120,000 · EducationTHE UNIVERSITY OF CHARL…EDUCATION ELEVATORS FOUNDATION INC — $37,500 · EducationEDUCATION ELEVATORS FOU…BOB BURDETTE CENTER INC — $60,000 · Human ServicesBOB BURDETT…ARTS IN ACTION INC — $10,000 · Human ServicesARTS IN ACT…DUNBAR-INSTITUTE SAMARITAN CENTER INC — $8,000 · Human ServicesDUNBAR-INST…BACKPACKBUDDYORG INC — $52,000 · Food & NutritionSHAWNEE PARK FOUNDATION INC — $10,000 · Recreation & Sports
    Other$447,500Education$157,500Human Services$78,000Food & Nutrition$52,000Recreation & Sports$10,000

    Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

    25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetTHE UNIVERSITY OF CHARLESTON INC — $120,000 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetBOB BURDETTE CENTER INC — $60,000 over 6y, 2.1% of budgetBACKPACKBUDDYORG INC — $52,000 over 6y, 8.1% of budgetEDUCATION ELEVATORS FOUNDATION INC — $37,500 over 6y, 8.1% of budgetSHAWNEE PARK FOUNDATION INC — $10,000 over 2y, 11% of budgetDUNBAR-INSTITUTE SAMARITAN CENTER INC — $8,000 over 2y, 11% of budget
    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 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHARLESTON INC
    • Who funds BOB BURDETTE CENTER INC
    • Who funds BACKPACKBUDDYORG INC
    • Who funds EDUCATION ELEVATORS FOUNDATION INC
    • Who funds ARTS IN ACTION INC
    • Who funds SHAWNEE PARK FOUNDATION INC
    • Who funds DUNBAR-INSTITUTE SAMARITAN CENTER 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.

    The Greater Kanawha Valley FoundationWV17.8× affinity6 shared granteesties to 1 of 1Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

    Open a dossier: The Greater Kanawha Valley Foundation · Amazonsmile 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 Helen W Poffenbarger and Perry S Poffenbarger 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.

    2024
    202122232425
    no gov · 00%1%4%8%15%your share of their income ↑0%3%5%8%10%share of the org’s income from government
      no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
      0get no government money at all
      1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
      0rely on government for over half their income
      ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–10%
      typical government reliance, FY2025

      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.

      05Through Plinth

      Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

      How do I get to Helen W Poffenbarger and Perry S Poffenbarger Foundation?

      Find your warmest path to Helen W Poffenbarger and Perry S Poffenbarger 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.

      On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 14 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your 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. How we build these →

      Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

      Source object · view filing

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