How much does John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster Foundation give?

John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster Foundation reported 33 grants totaling $77,488 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 26 and 44 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Health (40%), Environment (15%), Education (13%).

Who are John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Missouri Botanical Garden Board of Trustees ($81k), Washington University ($80k), Aspire Advocates for Behavioral Health Inc ($43k).

Does John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 12% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include St Louis Community Foundation Inc, World Wide Technology Foundation, Commerce Bancshares Foundation.

John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster Foundation

John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster Foundation

Q: Where is John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster Foundation based?

John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster Foundation is based in MO.

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$77k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$13k

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Health$290kEnvironment$111kEducation$91kHuman Services$75kAnimals$75kRecreation & Sports$33kArts & Culture$18kScience & Tech$12kOther$0

02FY2025 · 33 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k30 grants · $43k
$10k–50k3 grants · $34k

$1,000

Median grant

States reached

$1.3M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
Individual grant recipient	$13,000
ASPIRE ADVOCATES FOR BEHAVIORAL HEA	$11,000
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY	$10,000
ST LOUIS ZOO	$6,000
MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDENS	$5,000
ST LOUIS AQUARIUM FOUNDATION	$4,000
ALZHEIMERS ASSOCIATION	$4,000
GATEWAY ARCH PARK FOUNDATION	$3,000
Individual grant recipient	$2,000
JOY PETALERS	$2,000
ST LOUIS CHILDRENS HOSPITAL	$2,000
FOREST PARK FOREVER	$2,000
AMCP	$2,000
Individual grant recipient	$1,350
BIRTHRIGHT COUNSELING ST LOUIS	$1,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $63k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

87%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$628k · 53 repeat orgs$96k to everyone else

53 repeat relationships: 19 still active in FY2025, 34 since wound down; 14 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$628k

$87k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+33%

+48%

Still filing today

62%

59%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $9k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Human ServicesHealthAnimalsEnvironmentArts & CultureEducationOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

MB
MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BOARD OF TRUSTEES
9× · 2017–2025 · $81k · revenue +11%
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
9× · 2017–2025 · $80k · revenue +76%
FO
FRIENDS OF KIDS WITH CANCER
9× · 2017–2025 · $26k · revenue +63%

Funded once

KD
KILO DIABETES & VASCULAR RESEARCH
one grant, 2017 · $46k
GR
GATEWAY REGION YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION
one grant, 2023 · $16k · revenue -1%
CF
CHESTERFIELD FAMILY YMCA
one grant, 2023 · $12k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

The Saint Louis Zoo Association

The saint louis zoo association was established to support and enhance the saint louis zoo by providing facilities, funds, and advice. the association provides direct financial support to the zoo for renovations, new facilities, programs,…

Animals

Mid-America Transplant Services

To save lives through excellence in organ and tissue donation.

Health

Mission St Louis

Mission: st. louis empowers individuals for social and economic growth through relationships and opportunity.

Community Improvement

Missouri State Medical Association

Msma's mission is to serve its members through promotion of the science & art of medicine, protection of the health of the public & betterment of the medical profession in missouri.

—

St Lukes Episcopal-Presbyterian Hospitals

We are dedicated to providing exceptional care to every patient, every time.

Health

American Academy of Neurology

The Academy's mission is to enhance member career fulfillment and promote brain health for all.

Community Improvement

The Wildlife Society

The wildlife society's mission is to inspire, empower, and enable wildlife professionals to sustain wildlife populations and habitats through science-based management and conservation.

Animals

American Water Works Association

To promote public health, safety, and welfare through the improvement of the quality and quantity of drinking water and the development and furtherance of understanding of the problems relating thereto.

Public Benefit

Teach St Louis

Founded In 2018, Teach St. Louis (formerly St. Louis Teacher Residency) launched to improve teacher quality and retention in St. Louis, a city where 40% of new teachers exit the classroom in their first three years. Teach St. Louis…

Education

St Louis Association of Realtors

The association provides knowledge, guidance and resources which enhances members' professionalism and success, supports growth in the area's diverse communities and protects private property rights.

—

Ssm Health Care St Louis

Through our exceptional health care services, we reveal the healing presence of god.

Health

Federation of State Medical Boards of the United States Inc

The fsmb serves as the voice for state medical boards, supporting them through education, assessment, research and advocacy while providing services and initiatives that promote patient safety, quality health care and regulatory best…

Health

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is St Louis Crisis Nursery; the most unlike its peers is Bloomington Creative Glass Center. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

52 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 52 of the 85 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

51/52

Grantees still filing

35/52

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$313,275Environment$97,800Health$96,850Education$83,250Human Services$62,603Animals$50,950Recreation & Sports$18,750

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

St Louis Community Foundation IncMO41.1× affinity19 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: St Louis Community Foundation Inc · World Wide Technology Foundation · Commerce Bancshares Foundation · Moneta Group Charitable Foundation · Brown Dana Charitable Trust · Edward Jones Foundation · St Louis Community Foundation · Employees Community Fund of the Boeing Company · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Blues for Kids · United Way of Greater St Louis Inc · The Four Leaf Clover Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

13report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–25%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster Foundation?

Find your warmest path to John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster 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.

Play a game based on John Henry Foster and Bernadine Foster’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home