· Private foundation
John M & Gertrude E Petersen Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 73% of JOHN M & GERTRUDE E PETERSEN FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k5 grants · $25k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $126k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $385k
- $250k+1 grant · $425k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MERCY CENTER FOR WOMEN | $425,000 |
| AFRICA 6000 | $205,440 |
| SIGHT CENTER NWPA | $100,000 |
| HARBORCREEK YOUTH SERVICES | $80,000 |
| COMMUNITY COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL | $45,500 |
| CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTERS | $25,000 |
| GIRL SCOUTS OF WESTERN PA | $20,000 |
| FAMILY HOUSE | $15,000 |
| ERIE CITY MISSION | $10,000 |
| UNITED WAY OF ERIE COUNTY | $10,000 |
| SALVATION ARMY | $5,000 |
| EMMAUS MINISTRIES INC | $5,000 |
| SAINT PAUL'S NEIGHBORHOOD FREE | $5,000 |
| INNER CITY NEIGHBORHOOD ART HOUSE | $5,000 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF ERIE INC | $5,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $587k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, 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.
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 +30% since the first grant, against +18% for the ones you funded once.
30 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2025, 17 since wound down; 2 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, 87% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $125k 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
- MCMERCY CENTER FOR WOMEN INC9× · 2017–2025 · $1.3M · revenue +197% · 33% of their budget
- FHFAMILY HOUSE INC8× · 2017–2025 · $1.1M · revenue +26%
- HYHarborcreek Youth Services Inc7× · 2017–2025 · $755k · revenue +1%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2023 · $70k
- A6AFRICA 6000 INTERNATIONALone grant, 2019 · $59k
- ECERIE CATHOLIC SCHOOLSone grant, 2018 · $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.
Erie homes for children and adults operates as a private, non-profit agency providing programs for individuals with intellectual and physical disabilities.
To coordinate services among private and government agencies for specialized populations to ensure service continuity, reduce duplication, and assist individuals and families in accessing appropriate mental health, intellectual…
The primary purpose of the organization is to provide structured day care programs for pre-school children. the organization is dedicated to the nurturing, care and education of infants, toddlers, and pre-school children. the center owns…
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…
Early education and child care services
To provide information, counseling, and such services as may be appropriate to families or others in raising and nuturing children.
To engage in development of a self-help crisis intervention program to serve families mainly in erie county with abusive or potentially abusive family problems.
Erie Independence House, Inc. (EIH) exists to enhance and promote independence in people with disabilities through the provision of accessible, affordable, adaptive housing necessary for them to lead productive, independent lives. We offer…
Our mission is to provide a continuum of quality services which promote the emotional, behavioral, educational, and physical development of children, adolescents and their families.
Provide adoption, counseling services, and refugee assistance
The mission of the family health council of central pennsylvania, inc. (fhccp) is to build and support community-based health networks through partnerships, education, advocacy, and effective resource allocation.
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Family Services of Nw Pa and the most unlike its peers is Erie Zoological Society. 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 40 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 MERCY CENTER FOR WOMEN INC ↗
- Who funds FAMILY HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds Harborcreek Youth Services Inc ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ↗
- Who funds BETHESDA FOUNDATION FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds ASBURY WOODS PARTNERSHIP INC ↗
- Who funds FAMILY SERVICES OF NW PA ↗
- Who funds CITY MISSION OF THE EVANGELICAL CHURCHES OF ERIE ↗
- Who funds United Way of Erie County ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF ERIE INC ↗
- Who funds CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTERS INC ↗
- Who funds St Martin Center ↗
- Who funds DR GERTRUDE A BARBER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Erie Zoological Society ↗
- Who funds WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds ACHIEVEMENT CENTER 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: M J Surgala Tr · Erie Community Foundation · Wabtec Foundation · The Britton Family Foundation · Firstenergy Foundation · Merwin Foundation · Kern Family Foundation Inc · Northwest Charitable Foundation · Ge Aerospace Foundation · Vorsheck Family Foundation Inc · Charles a Dailey Foundation · United Way of Erie County
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 John M & Gertrude E Petersen 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.
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% of income from government
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 John M & Gertrude E Petersen Foundation?
Find your warmest path to John M & Gertrude E Petersen 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.