· Private foundation
James H Cummings Foundation Inc
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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k6 grants · $36k
- $10k–50k33 grants · $811k
- $50k–250k23 grants · $1.6M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CRADLE BEACH | $115,600 |
| RESEARCH FOUNDATION FOR SUNY AT UB | $104,189 |
| FEEDMORE WNY OF BUFFALO | $100,000 |
| UNITED WAY OF HENDERSON COUNTY | $100,000 |
| MINISTRY SEVEN | $87,297 |
| BROTHERS OF MERCY | $84,463 |
| JACOBS INSTITUTE | $80,196 |
| ADVENTHEALTH HENDERSONVILLE | $74,667 |
| SINAI HEALTH FOUNDATION | $72,337 |
| RAHAMA INC | $67,871 |
| DAEMEN UNIVERSITY | $60,000 |
| FOREST LAWN HERITAGE FOUNDATION | $57,407 |
| UNITED WAY OF BUFFALO & ERIE COUNTY | $55,000 |
| GATEWAY LONGVIEW | $54,805 |
| BUFFALO CENTER FOR THE ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY | $51,520 |
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 (FY20–25, $755k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 8% of James H Cummings Foundation Inc’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 78% of the giving stays in NY; read by stated purpose it is 73% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +14% since the first grant, against +10% for the ones you funded once.
60 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2025, 37 since wound down; 35 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, 53% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.1M 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
- TJTHE JACOBS INSTITUTE INC5× · 2020–2025 · $666k · revenue +65%
- HCHenderson County United Way Inc5× · 2020–2025 · $400k · revenue +68%
- HMHAUPTMAN-WOODWARD MEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE INC2× · 2020–2021 · $335k · revenue +59%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2023 · $250k
- TRThe Research Foundation for The State University of New Yorkgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $200k · revenue +33%
NIAGARA FALLS MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTERone grant, 2024 · $125k · revenue 0%
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.
The legal aid bureau of buffalo, inc., a not-for-profit organization, provides legal representation to financially needy men, women and children in western new york. through its skilled staff, the legal aid bureau seeks equal justice for…
The community health center of buffalo, inc operates four freestanding federally qualified health centers licensed as a diagnostic and treatment center under article 28 of the ny state health law. the center provides a broad range of…
To improve the quality of life of the people and neighborhoods we serve by preparing, equipping and empowering them to meet the challenges of contemporary urban life and realize their full potential.
Respond to economic, social, educational, and cultural needs of hispanic/latinos in western new york through bilingual, bicultural services that promote self-sufficiency and improve quality of life.
The buffalo erie niagara land improvement corporation (benlic) seeks to confront and alleviate the problems distressed properties cause to communities by supporting municipal and regional revitalization efforts and strategically acquiring,…
Lawny increases access to justice through excellent legal representation, advocacy and service.
To attract new employers to the buffalo niagara region through outreach to growing companies around the world. to support business attraction, expansion and entrepreneurship, invest buffalo niagara collaborates with local businesses,…
To acquire, remediate, and steward lands along wny's waterfronts prioritizing public access.
To provide decent, affordable housing to low and moderate income persons of wny.
University at buffalo neurosurgery, inc. is an academic neurosurgical group committed to excellence in patient care, research, and education. our mission is to develop and implement sound strategies that focus on quality medical services,…
We work to eliminate housing discrimination, promote open communities, and ensure equal access to housing opportunity for all people in central and northern new york.
To enhance the quality of life for the aged by promoting and providing quality care in a loving environment that supports their social, medical and religious needs while encouraging independence and self-development.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Neighborhood Health Center of Wny Inc and the most unlike its peers is My Fathers Storehouse the Storehouse. 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 40 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.9% lost their exemption, against 9% 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.
104 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. 104 of the 181 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 THE JACOBS INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds ROSWELL PARK ALLIANCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Henderson County United Way Inc ↗
- Who funds HAUPTMAN-WOODWARD MEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds CRADLE BEACH INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF BUFFALO AND ERIE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds D'YOUVILLE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds The Research Foundation for The State University of New York ↗
- Who funds BROTHERS OF MERCY HOLDING INC ↗
- Who funds HENDERSONVILLE RESCUE MISSION ↗
- Who funds The Rural Outreach Center Inc ↗
- Who funds TROCAIRE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF BUFFALO INC ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO PREP INC ↗
- Who funds SAFELIGHT INC ↗
- Who funds GERARD PLACE HOUSING DEVELOPMENT FUND COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR GREATER BUFFALO INC ↗
- Who funds NIAGARA FALLS MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY BUFFALO INC ↗
- Who funds UB Foundation Services Inc ↗
- Who funds Catholic Health System ↗
- Who funds University District Community Developmen ↗
- Who funds KING URBAN LIFE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds EPIC - EVERY PERSON INFLUENCES CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO FINE ARTS ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds PARDEE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL FOUNDATION 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 Greater Buffalo Inc · The John R Oishei Foundation · The Western New York Foundation · Cullen Foundation · First Niagara Foundation · United Way of Buffalo and Erie County · The Peter and Elizabeth C Tower Foundation · The Margaret L Wendt Foundation · Children's Foundation of Erie County Inc · Rich Family Foundation · Mother Cabrini Health Foundation Inc · The Baird 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 James H Cummings 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 James H Cummings Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to James H Cummings 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.