· Private foundation
Highlands Foundation Inc
Its FY2024 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 placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k4 grants · $10k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $50k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $300k
- $250k+1 grant · $250k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| JOHN F KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS | $250,000 |
| DOMESTIC ABUSE INTERVENTION SERVICES | $100,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| UNITED WAY OF DANE COUNTY | $25,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA LEAGUE | $5,000 |
| WISCONSIN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA | $3,000 |
| MADISON MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART | $1,000 |
| NORTH LAKELAND DISCOVERY CENTER | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY19–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% of your 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 +47% since the first grant, against +28% for the ones you funded once.
12 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 3 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, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $50k 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 FOUNDATION5× · 2019–2024 · $18M · revenue +21%
- JFJOHN F KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS5× · 2020–2024 · $1.1M · revenue +55%
- DADOMESTIC ABUSE INTERVENTION SERVICES INC2× · 2019–2024 · $110k · revenue +47%
Funded once
- EHEDGEWOOD HIGH SCHOOLone grant, 2022 · $200k
- OCOVERTURE CENTER FOR THE ARTSone grant, 2022 · $100k
- BHBETHEL HORIZONS FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2020 · $100k
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.
Madison community foundation will engage greater madison in philanthropy to advance a more vibrant and equitable community.
The museum of wisconsin art celebrates the value, diversity, and uniqueness of the visual arts and artists of wisconsin. this is achieved by collecting, conserving, documenting, exhibiting, and promoting aesthetic understanding of the…
We conduct impartial public policy research and analysis to drive informed debate and effective decision-making in the state of wisconsin.
Make downtown madison an economically strong, equitable, inclusive, and vibrant place to live, work, and visit.
To administer investments and receive support for the exclusive benefit of the madison museum of contemporary art, inc.
To collect, display and interpret objects in craft art and design.
The mission of the uwm foundation, inc. is to support the educational, literary, and scientific endeavors of the university of wisconsin-milwaukee by receiving, managing, and distributing gifts to benefit the university's students,…
The wisconsin historical foundation exists to advance the mission of the wisconsin historical society: to help people connect to the past by collecting, preserving and sharing stories.
The war memorial center's mission is to honor the dead and serve the living. we commemorate the courageous men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of freedom while preserving and sharing the stories, experiences, and…
The wisconsin maritime museum connects all people with wisconsin's waterways, by engaging and educating the public about wisconsin's maritime history, wisconsin's world war ii submarines, uss cobia, and the great lakes. the wisconsin…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Madison Children's Museum Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Thomas G Stamm Family Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
17 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. 17 of the 29 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 JOHN F KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF DANE COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds DOMESTIC ABUSE INTERVENTION SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Arizona Humane Society ↗
- Who funds MADISON PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds WISCONSIN CHAMBER ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE WAISMAN CENTER ↗
- Who funds THOMAS G STAMM FAMILY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MADISON MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART INC ↗
- Who funds MADISON CHILDREN'S MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds SAFE HARBOR CHILD ADVOCACY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds MADISON CHILDREN'S MUSEUM FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH LAKELAND DISCOVERY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Veterans of Foreign War 7591 Auxiliary ↗
- Who funds OCALA FARM MINISTRY 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: Madison Community Foundation · Madison Gas and Electric Foundation Inc · Herbert H Kohl Charities Inc · Endres Manufacturing Foundation Inc · The Evjue Foundation Inc · Veridian Foundation Inc · United Way of Dane County Inc · Green Bay Packers Foundation · Alliant Energy Foundation Inc · Steinhauer Charitable Foundation · John W Thompson and Jane a Bartell Charitable Foun · Hooper Corp 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 Highlands 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 Highlands Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Highlands 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.