· Public charity
Louisville Water Foundation
The Louisville Water Foundation's mission is to improve the health and well-being of the communities we serve and around the world by providing water assistance and water education.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k7 grants · $105k
- $250k+1 grant · $350k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Association of Community Ministries | $350,000 |
| The Salvation Army | $25,000 |
| Bernheim Arboretum & Research Forest | $15,000 |
| Fund for the Arts | $15,000 |
| Water By Women | $15,000 |
| The Parklands of Floyds Fork | $15,000 |
| Young Authors Greenhouse | $10,000 |
| Passionist Earth & Spirit Center Inc | $10,000 |
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, $136k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 85% 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.
13 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15k 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
- MCMULTI-PURPOSE COMMUNITY ACTION AGENCY INC6× · 2017–2023 · $154k · revenue +76%
- WIWATERSTEP INC4× · 2017–2023 · $105k · revenue +97%
- TKTEACH KENTUCKY INC4× · 2017–2021 · $70k · revenue +23%
Funded once
- OBOWSLEY BROWN FRAZIER HISTORICAL ARMS MUSEUM FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $30k · revenue +58%
- WBWATERFRONT BOTANICAL GARDENS INCgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $25k · revenue +287%
- LZLOUISVILLE ZOO FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2017 · $24k · revenue -1%
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 Louisville Water Foundation's mission is to improve the health and well-being of the communities we serve and around the world by providing water assistance and water education. The Foundation will provide assistance for water…
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.
Transform east african communities by providing access to clean well water and water systems.
America's watershed initiative serves as a trusted voice that brings partners together and champions sound science to secure a future in which the rivers and people of the mississippi river watershed thrive.
To improve the quality of life for all kentuckians through research, education and advocacy on important policy issues facing the commonwealth.
Charleston waterkeeper's mission it to protect and restore charleston's waterways for our community and future generations. we do that through an effective mix of boots-on-the-water stewardship and data-driven advocacy designed to protect…
Well Aware's mission is to provide innovative and sustainable solutions to water scarcity and contamination in East Africa.
To represent our members, creating the environment and opportunity for economic prosperity and quality living in central kentucky.
Our mission is to improve the health and quality of life for louisville's current and future generations through a robust, equitable and diverse tree canopy.
The mission is to provide education to the local population on the wonders of our environment.
Lifewater international is a non-profit christian water development organization dedicated to effectively serving vulnerable children and families by partnering with underserved communities to overcome water poverty.
Lpm provides independent and courageous news, music and experiences that serve the needs and aspirations of our diverse communities.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Water Missions International and the most unlike its peers is Shirley's Way 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.
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 31 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 30 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 ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds MULTI-PURPOSE COMMUNITY ACTION AGENCY INC ↗
- Who funds FUND FOR THE ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds WATERSTEP INC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG AUTHORS GREENHOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds TEACH KENTUCKY INC ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds Water By Women ↗
- Who funds ISAAC W BERNHEIM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Louisville Grows Incorporated ↗
- Who funds Ugandan Water Project ↗
- Who funds OWSLEY BROWN FRAZIER HISTORICAL ARMS MUSEUM FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds PASSIONIST EARTH & SPIRIT CENTER IN ↗
- Who funds WATERFRONT BOTANICAL GARDENS INC ↗
- Who funds LOUISVILLE ZOO FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FAMILY LIFE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds WATER MISSIONS INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds HEALING WATERS INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds NEW DIRECTIONS HOUSING CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds PARKS ALLIANCE OF LOUISVILLE INC ↗
- Who funds 21ST CENTURY PARKS INC ↗
- Who funds WATER IS BASIC ↗
- Who funds Kentucky Chamber Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds Shirley's Way Inc ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY TENNESSEE SECTION OF THE AMERICAN WATER WORKS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY WATERWAYS ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY DERBY MUSEUM CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICANA COMMUNITY 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: The Community Foundation of Louisville Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Corporate Depository Inc · The Gheens Foundation Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Depository Inc · LG&E and Ku Foundation Inc · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels Inc · James Graham Brown Foundation Inc · Lift a Life Foundation Inc · Brown-Forman Foundation · V V Cooke Foundation Corporation · Sociable Weaver Foundation 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 Louisville Water 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.
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 Louisville Water Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Louisville Water 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.