· Private foundation
J Earl Belch Charitable Trust
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 $10k7 grants · $29k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $25k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $80k
- $250k+2 grants · $950k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COLUMBUS GROVE LOCAL SCHOOLS | $650,008 |
| LIFEWISE ACADEMY | $300,000 |
| COLUMBUS GROVE LOCAL SCHOOLS | $80,000 |
| THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY | $15,000 |
| BOWLING GREEN STATE UNIVERSITY | $10,000 |
| COLUMBUS GROVE LOCAL SCHOOLS | $8,478 |
| COLUMBIA SOUTHERN UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
| LIFEWISE ACADEMY | $5,000 |
| ANIMAL PROTECTION LEAGUE OF MERCER COUNTY | $5,000 |
| SONS OF AMERICAN LEGION | $3,000 |
| RHODES STATE COLLEGE | $2,098 |
| BLUFFTON UNIVERSITY | $649 |
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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 9% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
25 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2025, 17 since wound down; 1 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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5k 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
- LILIFEWISE INC4× · 2022–2025 · $314k · revenue +503%
- DCDEFIANCE COLLEGE3× · 2017–2019 · $35k · revenue +7%
- ONOhio Northern University4× · 2017–2024 · $16k · revenue +27%
Funded once
- PCPUTNAM COUNTY 911one grant, 2021 · $45k
- CGCOLUMBUS GROVE PLEASANT TWP JOINT FIRE DEPTone grant, 2024 · $18k
- TOTHE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY AT LIMAone grant, 2022 · $10k
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.
Union university provides christ-centered education that promotes excellence and character development in service to church and society.
Walsh university is an independent, coeducational catholic, liberal arts and sciences institution dedicated to educating its students to become leaders in service to others through a values-based education with an international perspective…
See schedule o.we are inspired by the ideals of our founder who, in 1896, emphasized respect for all people and ideas, who honored knowledge with practice, progress and the common good. our historical commitment to experiential learning…
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
As new york's leading university for character education, rwu is a community of learners committed to historic christianity which seeks to prepare thoughtful, spiritually mature, service-oriented people who will transform society.
Benedictine University is an inclusive academic community dedicated to teaching and learning, scholarship and service, truth and justice, as inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition, the social teaching of the Church, and the…
Since 1902, Franklin University has been a pioneer in meeting the needs of adult students who have the ambition to continue their education in combination with other responsibilities, receiving its status as a tax exempt organization in…
Nebraska wesleyan university is an academic community dedicated to intellectual and personal growth within the context of a liberal arts education and in an environment of christian concern.
Educate students by linking knowledge to professional practice.
Heidelberg university's mission and programs are firmly rooted in liberal arts with innovative coursework in sciences, global education, business and related graduate-level programs. quality education, services to students, a close…
Excelsior University provides educational opportunity to adult learners with an emphasis on those historically underrepresented in higher education. The University meets students where they are - academically and geographically, offering…
Oberlin College and Conservatory educate students for lives of intellectual, musical and artistic rigor and breadth, sustained inquiry, creativity and innovation, and leadership. Oberlin aims to prepare graduates with the knowledge,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Ohio Northern University and the most unlike its peers is Animal Protection League of Mercer. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 45 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 LIFEWISE INC ↗
- Who funds DEFIANCE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Ohio Northern University ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF NORTHWESTERN OHIO ↗
- Who funds Cedarville University ↗
- Who funds The University of Findlay ↗
- Who funds ASHLAND UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Otterbein University ↗
- Who funds ANIMAL PROTECTION LEAGUE OF MERCER ↗
- Who funds Bluffton University ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds Wilmington College ↗
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: Columbus Foundation · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 J Earl Belch Charitable Trust 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.