· Private foundation
Hess Family Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k7 grants · $40k
- $10k–50k16 grants · $372k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| HOUSE OF HAGAR - SHARE INC | $48,000 |
| YWCA WHEELING | $45,400 |
| THE OGLEBAY FOUNDATION | $44,000 |
| WHEELING NATIONAL HERITAGE AREA | $40,000 |
| GROW OHIO VALLEY | $30,000 |
| CORNERSTONE CHRISTIAN ACADEMY | $25,000 |
| THE LIFE HUB INC | $25,000 |
| ST ALPHONSUS CATHOLIC CHURCH | $20,000 |
| OGLEBAY INSTITUTE | $18,000 |
| YOUTH SERVICES SYSTEM INC | $16,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $11,000 |
| WHEELING UNIVERSITY | $10,038 |
| WHEELING YMCA | $10,000 |
| FAMILY SERVICES UPPER OHIO VALLEY | $10,000 |
| WHEELING NATIONAL HERITAGE AREA | $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 (FY17–24, $465k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 14%. 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +30% since the first grant, against -7% for the ones you funded once.
30 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2024, 9 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $20k 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
- GOGROW OHIO VALLEY INC7× · 2017–2024 · $267k · revenue +425%
- OFOGLEBAY FOUNDATION INC8× · 2017–2024 · $247k · revenue +284%
- WNWHEELING NATIONAL HERITAGE AREA CORPORATION8× · 2017–2024 · $247k · revenue +69%
Funded once
- OCOHIO COUNTY SCHOOLSone grant, 2022 · $20k
- WLWEST LIBERTY ELEMENTARY PTOone grant, 2017 · $20k
- LCLAUGHLIN COMMUNITY CENTERone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue +2%
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.
Administer and maintain mt zion cemetery as a place of internment or burial in ohio county, wv as well as to promote and protect its historic character and educational value.
To provide care to childen and their families through a range of services that promote healthy growth and improve the quality of family life
Establish, conduct, implement, operate, coordinate and finance programs for the benefit of the low-income, minority, elderly, disadvantaged and handicapped citizens of wayne county, wv
To provide charitable, free medical care and pharmaceuticals to residents who fall below federal poverty guidelines and live in ohio, marshall, wetzel and southern brooke counties in west virginia and belmont county in ohio.
The organization's mission is to provide guidance and resources to disabled individuals with a focus on educational attainment, employment procurement, health and wellness, community integration, recreation, housing acquisition, and…
Alcohol and drug rehabilitation
To advance housing and human services to the homeless and to educate the community on the plight of homelessness in the area.
Wmm is a non-denominational, christian, social services organization, which provides christ-centered programs and services for individuals experiencing homelessness and those in need. our vision is to see every individual we serve equipped…
The mission of ohio valley goodwill industries rehabilitation center, inc. is to provide vocational rehabilitation, training, and employment services to individuals with either disabilities or social and economic barriers to full employment
Wayne center is involved in the evaluation,placement and services of persons with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities in wayne county.
The mission of the welty home for the aged, inc. is to own, operate and maintain within the city of wheeling and elsewhere in ohio county, west virginia, facilities having the capacity to provide a full range of secondary healthcare…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Community Foundation for the Ohio Valley Inc and the most unlike its peers is Cornerstone Christian Academy Inc. 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 36 years old; the field is 27. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 14% startups (under 5 years old) — 7% of your grantees by number, and just 4% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 6% 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.
27 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. 27 of the 47 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 GROW OHIO VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds OGLEBAY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds WHEELING NATIONAL HERITAGE AREA CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds YOUTH SERVICES SYSTEM INC ↗
- Who funds OGLEBAY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF WHEELING INC ↗
- Who funds WHEELING COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds YOUNG WOMENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF WHEELING WV ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC CHARITIES WEST VIRGINIA INC ↗
- Who funds Cornerstone Christian Academy Inc ↗
- Who funds LIFE HUB INC ↗
- Who funds SEEING HAND ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds LAZARUS HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds NAMI OF GREATER WHEELING INC ↗
- Who funds WHEELING JESUIT UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds NEW CITY INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR THE OHIO VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds FAMILY SERVICE - UPPER OHIO VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds PHILANTHROPY WEST VIRGINIA INC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF WHEELING ↗
- Who funds BETHANY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds LAUGHLIN COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE CHILDRENS MUSEUM OF THE OHIO VALLEY 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: Community Foundation for the Ohio Valley Inc · Elizabeth Stifel Kline Foundation · Albert Schenk III & Kathleen H Schenk Charitable Trust · August J & Thelma S Hoffmann Foundation · Raymond A & Gertrude D Hyer Foundation · James B Chambers Memorial · Stamp 2001 Charitable Fund · United Way of the Upper Ohio Valley Inc · Eqt Foundation · W E Stone Foundation · Vna Home Support Services Inc · Francis J and Edith Jackson Founda Security National Trust Company
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 Hess 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.
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 Hess Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Hess 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.