· Private foundation
Irene C Shea Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $7k
- $10k–50k20 grants · $399k
- $50k–250k11 grants · $784k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CARLOW UNIVERSITY | $159,000 |
| WOMEN'S CENTER & SHELTER OF GREATER | $100,000 |
| EAST LIBERTY FAMILY HEALTH CARE | $75,000 |
| PENNSYLVANIA ORGANIZATION FOR WO | $75,000 |
| Coalition for Christian Outreach | $65,000 |
| Angel's Place | $60,000 |
| THE PITTSBURGH PROJECT | $50,000 |
| HOLY FAMILY INSTITUTE | $50,000 |
| Catholic Charities of the Diocese of PGH | $50,000 |
| KIDSVOICE | $50,000 |
| East End Cooperative Ministry | $50,000 |
| EMMAUS COMMUNITY OF PITTSBURGH | $40,000 |
| JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF WESTERN | $30,000 |
| FRIENDS OF CAMP KON-O-KWEE SPENCER | $25,000 |
| Miracle League of the South Hills Inc | $25,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $2.5M) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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 +41% since the first grant, against +25% for the ones you funded once.
40 repeat relationships — 28 still active in FY2025, 12 since wound down; 4 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, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $40k 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
- CUCARLOW UNIVERSITY9× · 2017–2025 · $1.2M · revenue +65%
- APAngels Place Inc9× · 2017–2025 · $525k · revenue +110%
- ELEAST LIBERTY FAMILY HEALTH CARE CENTER INC7× · 2017–2025 · $525k · revenue +120%
Funded once
- TCTHE CAMPUS LABORATORY SCHOOone grant, 2023 · $75k
- CHCATHOLIC HOSPICE INCone grant, 2018 · $50k · revenue -24%
- PMPITTSBURGH MERCY HEALTH SYSTEM INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $50k · revenue +77%
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.
Youth enrichment services, inc. was founded in 1994 for the purpose of providing at-risk teens and low-income families residing in allegheny county a comprehensive in-home peer mentoring program, juvenile alternative to detention,…
Provides innovative education in a dynamic urban setting. dedicated to academic excellence and community engagement,we prepare students of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skill,and experience to lead meaningful lives as informed…
Jeremiah's place will protect children and strengthen families by providing a safe haven of respite, health, renewal, and support for children and families during times of crisis. we strive to serve as a leading voice for child abuse…
Our mission is to serve children and youth facing homelessness and human trafficking, and to protect and safeguard all children. we provide trauma-informed interventions for youth who are in need.covenant house pennsylvania (chpa) remains…
We, pittsburgh mercy health system and trinity health, serve together in the spirit of the gospel as a compassionate and transforming healing presence within our communities. mercy life center is a member of pittsburgh mercy health system…
To provide a means for sharing resources and information among members, engage in joint projects, and offer a common voice on educational matters.
To create and distribute trusted content, build connections and strengthen our community through public media.
To heal. to teach. to empower. to amaze.
The pittsburgh promise promotes high educational aspirations among urban youth, funds scholarships for post-secondary access, and fuels a prepared and diverse regional workforce.
Commmunity action commission's mission is to build on the strengths and resources available, provide solutions, for complex issues, and empower individuals, families, and communities to move out of poverty.
Shady side academy offers an exceptional pre-k through twelfth grade academic and balanced educational experience by challenging each student to realize his or her potential in a stimulating and nurturing environment.
Bethesda's vision is to fulfill the social, emotional, spiritual, and behavioral health needs of children, families, and individuals by providing an effective and efficient continuum of care in a quality focused environment.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Urban Impact Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Presbyterian SeniorCare. 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 43 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 16% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 8% 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.
37 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. 37 of the 53 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 CARLOW UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds COALITION FOR CHRISTIAN OUTREACH ↗
- Who funds Angels Place Inc ↗
- Who funds EAST LIBERTY FAMILY HEALTH CARE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds BETHLEHEM HAVEN OF PITTSBURGH ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S CENTER AND SHELTER OF GREATER PITTSBURGH ↗
- Who funds The Pittsburgh Project ↗
- Who funds KIDSVOICE ↗
- Who funds HOLY FAMILY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds EAST END COOPERATIVE MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE DIOCESE OF PGH ↗
- Who funds EMMAUS COMMUNITY OF PITTSBURGH INC ↗
- Who funds THE BLESSING BOARD ↗
- Who funds JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA INC ↗
- Who funds CITY OF ASYLUM ↗
- Who funds CIVIC LIGHT OPERA ASSOCIATION OF GREATER PITTSBURGH ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR THEATER ARTS ↗
- Who funds Beaver Falls Youth Network Inc ↗
- Who funds THE CROSSROADS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY AT HOLY FAMILY MANOR ↗
- Who funds The City Theatre Company Inc ↗
- Who funds PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY INC ↗
- Who funds THE NEIGHBORHOOD ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC HOSPICE INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF CAMP KON-O-KWEE SPENCER ↗
- Who funds CAFE MOMENTUM PITTSBURGH ↗
- Who funds CASEY'S CLUBHOUSE ↗
- Who funds PITTSBURGH MERCY HEALTH SYSTEM 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: The Pittsburgh Foundation · The United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania · The Grable Foundation · Hillman Family Foundations · Richard King Mellon Foundation · The Heinz Endowments · Massey Charitable Trust · Snee-Reinhardt Charitable Foundation · McCune Foundation Pnc Bank Na · The Jack Buncher Foundation · Staunton Farm Foundation 540-054 Dba Staunton Farm Foundation · Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh
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 Irene C Shea 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 Irene C Shea Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Irene C Shea 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.