How much did John R. Oishei Foundation grant in FY2024?

John R. Oishei Foundation reported 168 grants totaling $9,466,396 in its FY2024 IRS filing.

Where is John R. Oishei Foundation based?

John R. Oishei Foundation is based in Buffalo, NY.

John R. Oishei Foundation

Foundation Dossiers Also receives grants — funding profile →

Buffalo, NY · Private foundation

John R. Oishei Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$9.5M

Granted FY2024still arriving

168

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$930k

Largest

01What you fund

01100% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2024.

Education$23MHealth$14MArts & Culture$13MHuman Services$8.6MPhilanthropy$6.4MCommunity Improvement$3.6MHousing & Shelter$1.9MReligion$1.4MOther$0

02beneath the categories

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.

Each cell is that theme’s share of the year’s giving · ⚡ ringed cells mark a flagged jump.

03FY2024 · 168 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

Grant-size mix · FY2020–FY2024

FY20

12%

32%

55%

$14.6M

FY21

35%

57%

$17.0M

FY22

11%

51%

36%

$11.9M

FY23

10%

46%

43%

$11.2M

FY24

15%

31%

52%

$9.5M

Under $10k$10k–50k$50k–250k$250k+

In FY2020, 55% of your dollars went out in $250k+ checks; by FY2024 that was 52%. Each year’s bar is its own 100%, so the bands show the mix, not the total.

$20,000

Median grant

States reached

$330M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
EDUCATION COLLABORATIVE OF WNY INC	$930,000
BUFFALO CENTER FOR ARTS & TECHNOLOGY (BCAT)	$500,000
EDUCATION COLLABORATIVE OF WNY INC	$420,354
BUFFALO CENTER FOR ARTS & TECHNOLOGY (BCAT)	$400,000
EDUCATION COLLABORATIVE OF WNY INC	$372,000
BUFFALO PREP	$350,000
COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS OF NY INC	$303,000
BUFFALO FINE ARTS ACADEMY (DBA ALBRIGHT-KNOX ART GALLERY)	$300,000
CENTER FOR REGIONAL STRATEGIES	$300,000
SAY YES BUFFALO SCHOLARSHIP INC	$300,000
NY FUNDERS ALLIANCE (GRANTMAKERS FORUM OF NEW YORK INC)	$275,000
CANISIUS COLLEGE	$250,000
CAUSEWAVE COMMUNITY PARTNERS	$250,000
BISON CHILDREN'S SCHOLARSHIP FUND	$234,500
BISON CHILDREN'S SCHOLARSHIP FUND	$234,500

02The need

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.

show:

Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY20–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 24%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 94% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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

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.

The hardship those neighborhoods carry, beyond income:

Adults without health insurance:reaches 20.8% in some neighborhoods (typically 5.6%)(CDC, modeled)
Food access:52 of 491 neighborhoods are USDA-designated food deserts(USDA, 2019)

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.

03Your edge

The orgs you fund vs the ones you don’t

You skew toward the sturdier end of a fragile field.

The organisations you back are larger and somewhat healthier than comparable nonprofits nearby that you don't fund — but the edge is real, not dramatic: 77% of those you fund still carry a fragility flag, against 78% of the unfunded. In a sector where most run thin, you lean toward resilience rather than backing a financially secure elite.

The kind of organization you back

73% of the organizations you back live mainly on donations, against 45% of the comparable nonprofits nearby you don’t fund. The ones you pick show fewer of the warning signs below than the field you don’t fund.

What they work on

Arts & Culture15% vs 7%
Human Services15% vs 11%
Community Improvement7% vs 4%

The nearby nonprofits you don’t fund are concentrated in Education, Housing & Shelter, Public Safety & Disaster.

How they hold up

Lean on a single income source50% vs 60%

you fund (149) you don’t (1275)· share of each group

You fund (149)You don’t (1275)

Median size (revenue)$1.9M$985k

Operating margin4%3%

Financially fragile77%78%

Comparison vs unfunded, size/cause-matched nonprofits in your county. Association, not proof — the funder enables, it does not solely cause.

repeat funding

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.

88%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$62M · 189 repeat orgs$8.8M to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +30% since the first grant, against +26% for the ones you funded once.

189 repeat relationships — 120 still active in FY2024, 69 since wound down; 18 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

Of your 170 multi-year relationships, 73 repeat the same amount every year (36% of multi-year dollars), the pattern of a standing commitment. The rest vary year to year. Grant terms aren’t stated in the filing; this is inferred from the payment pattern.

You also report $7.8Mapproved for future payment (Form 990-PF, Part XV) — grants already committed but not yet paid, a forward pledge the current-year ledger doesn’t show.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

189

111

Total granted

$62M

$7.9M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+30%

+26%

Still filing today

74%

77%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $860k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Human ServicesArts & CultureHealthEducationCommunity ImprovementPhilanthropyOther

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

EC
EDUCATION COLLABORATIVE OF WNY INC
6× · 2019–2024 · $9.0M · revenue +30% · 94% of their budget
Founded in 1998 as BISSNET and rebranded as EdCo in 2015, the Education Collaborative of WNY has grown from a 17-school founding network into a durable consortium of 12 accredited institutions, distributing $1.2 million in scholarships and grants in its most recent filing year.
TC
THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF BUFFALO FOUNDATION
4× · 2019–2022 · $4.0M · revenue +114%
TB
THE BISON CHILDREN'S SCHOLARSHIP FUND INC
6× · 2019–2024 · $3.0M · revenue +54%

Funded once

KALEIDA HEALTH FOUNDATIONgraduated
one grant, 2020 · $800k · revenue +35%
PI
PEOPLE INC
one grant, 2020 · $500k
AS
ARDENT SOLUTIONS INCgraduated
one grant, 2023 · $300k · revenue +29%

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

Activities, outputs, outcomes

Most can say what their work is for. Few can show it changed. Click an area to step through it.

Of 50 organizations, 2 show a change. The rest report what they did, or only what they hope it’s for.

Click an area to read it, and step through its organizations.

Read from 50 of the 105 organizations you fund across these 5 areas— those you fund most heavily — in their own program-service reporting. Achievements are the organizations’ own.

case studies

Two relationships, up close

One you funded repeatedly and one you funded once, each traced through its own filings and the public record.

EDUCATION COLLABORATIVE OF WNY INC

Conviction

A founding bet, still holding

Oishei's relationship with EdCo stretches back to the organization's very founding — originally established in 1998 as BISSNET in partnership with the Foundation itself. After five grants totaling $7,786,427 between 2020 and 2024, peaking at 109% of EdCo's budget in a single year, the consortium has grown its revenue at a 4% CAGR and continues to serve students and teachers across 12 member schools through scholarships, technology grants, software, and training. Recurring deficits and shrinking net assets (now approximately $436K) signal that EdCo's cost base has outpaced its revenue growth, making Oishei's sustained conviction a defining factor in the organization's continuity.

6× · 2019–2024

Funded

$9.0M

You committed

94%

Peak share of budget

+30%

Their revenue since

Group Ministries Inc

Funded once · graduated

Small early bet, remarkable growth

A single $5,000 grant in 2020 — representing up to 59% of Group Ministries' budget at the time — came to a Buffalo organization with three decades of quiet, street-level presence in a drug-affected neighborhood, and cumulative community contacts surpassing 150,000 people. In the years since, Group Ministries' revenue has risen 1,260% alongside an expanding program footprint that now spans pastoral care for HIV-positive patients, transitional housing for people leaving incarceration, detoxification support, and AIDS education across Western New York. Recurring deficits and single-source income concentration suggest the organization's ambitions continue to outpace its financial footing, even as its reach has grown dramatically.

When you stepped in · 2020

$9k

their revenue

$5k= 59% of it

once

Latest filing · 2024

$116k×14

grown on its own, no further grants

from $9k — a small base, so the multiple says more about the starting year than the growth

2024 · what they did next

Provided temporary housing for incarcerated inmates leaving prison.

projects.propublica.org

Trajectories are each organization’s own subsequent IRS filings; milestones are from the public record, linked to source. Revenue is the organization’s whole income from every source, not a return on these grants: we date what happened after a grant, and do not claim the grant caused it.

04Your field

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.

Invest Buffalo Niagara Foundation Inc

Invest buffalo niagara foundation, inc. is a vehicle to solicit charitable contributions to develop programs, collaborate with, and provide funding to organizations that advance and encourage economic development in western new york.

Community Improvement

Legal Assistance of Western New York Inc

Lawny increases access to justice through excellent legal representation, advocacy and service.

Crime & Legal

Wyoming County Community Action Inc

To improve the quality of life for all residents of its primary service areas by focusing on meeting the needs of the low-income and disadvantaged population, and to promote the personal and family growth of its constituents as they move…

Community Improvement

Central New York Quest Inc

Central ny quest has been established to serve the needs of persons with intellectual, developmental and mental health disorders in the central new york region.

Human Services

Neighborhood Health Center of Wny Inc

We welcome all western new yorkers for high quality, patient-centered primary healthcare.

—

Accesscny Inc

Accesscny offers personcentered services that empower individuals of all ages and abilities to reach their full potential as part of our shared community. services are provided with dedication, compassion, innovation, and commitment. the…

Health

Cny Fair Housing Inc

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.

—

Reentry Association of Wny Inc

RAWNY is dedicated to serving our community by supporting the men and women who have experienced incarceration, and the agencies that serve them, to ensure anyone reentering has access to needed resources and support.

Crime & Legal

Western Ny Coalition of Farmworker Serving Agencies Inc

To promote justice, dignity, and equity for migrants and farmworkers through advocacy, education, outreach, and direct services. We empower our communities to achieve self-sufficiency by fostering collaboration among partners.

Human Services

Center for Elder Law & Justice Inc

To improve the quality of life for elderly, disabled and low-income persons in the western new york area through the provision of free civil legal services. the primary goal is to use the legal system to assure that clients may live…

Crime & Legal

Buffalo Niagara River Land Trust Inc

To acquire, remediate, and steward lands along wny's waterfronts prioritizing public access.

Environment

Leadership Buffalo Inc

Founded in 1987, leadership buffalo, inc conducts programs designed to enhance development of long-term leadership in the greater buffalo, ny community. the organization develops and unites leaders of diverse backgrounds and perspectives…

Civil Rights

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Community Connections of Ny Inc and the most unlike its peers is Rooted in Love Inc. 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.

the sector your giving your giving is ahead of the sector the sector’s ahead of you· dot size = how much the theme matters to each side

Ordered by the change in your giving — leaning in on top, pulling back at the bottom. The bar between the two dots is how out of step you are with the sector. Hover any row for detail.

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 32 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.7% lost their exemption, against 9% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund

0.7%2/270

the rest of the field

536/5,959

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.

05the grantee network

252 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. 252 of the 321 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

245/252

Grantees still filing

161/252

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Other$19,803,285Education$14,632,155Arts & Culture$11,178,748Health$10,747,700Philanthropy$10,267,925Human Services$6,198,866Community Improvement$2,274,635

Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.

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.

126 internal · 45 shared anchors

Your portfolio is already a network

Neighborhood Health Center of WNY partnered with Kaleida Health in a nearly 10-year-long collaboration to establish primary care services on Buffalo's West Side. It’s one of 126 direct ties among 166 of your grantees, who also cluster around 45 shared regional anchors.

Ties are read from news and organization websites, so they’re directional, not exhaustive; each links to its source.

166

Grantees connected

126

Grantee↔grantee ties

Shared anchors (2+ grantees)

534

External links

Tap any organization to trace its collaborations — shared anchors pull toward the center

min. connectionstheme137 shown · 185 ties

grantee you fund external partner named by both stated inferred

Tap any organization in the graph to trace its collaborations — or start with the strongest ties below.

Strongest grantee↔grantee ties

↔
corroborated Affiliation · Joint program
↔
corroborated Joint program
↔
corroborated Coalition · Joint program
↔
corroborated Joint program
↔
corroborated Joint program

Anchors several grantees share

14 grantees
12 grantees
7 grantees
7 grantees
6 grantees
4 grantees

Joint program 350Coalition 123Affiliation 123Funding 31Merger / affiliation 12Referral network 12Shared facility 8Fiscal sponsorship 4Collaboration 1

Partnerships are LLM-extracted from news and organisation websites, not from tax filings — directional, not exhaustive. Each edge links to its source; corroborated edges were named independently by both organisations.

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.

Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo IncNY268.8× affinity190 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo Inc · The Western New York Foundation · The Peter and Elizabeth C Tower Foundation · First Niagara Foundation · United Way of Buffalo and Erie County · Buffalo Bills Foundation Inc · Cullen Foundation · The Margaret L Wendt Foundation · Children's Foundation of Erie County Inc · East Hill Foundation · Health Foundation for Western & Central New York · Feedmore Western New York Inc

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 R. Oishei 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.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

104report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

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.

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