· Private foundation
M J Surgala Tr
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k24 grants · $90k
- $10k–50k20 grants · $334k
- $50k–250k7 grants · $405k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| JEFFERSON EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY | $100,000 |
| UNITED WAY OF ERIE COUNTY | $55,000 |
| UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH OF GIRARD | $50,000 |
| ERIE CITY MISSION | $50,000 |
| MOUNT ST BENEDICT MONASTERY | $50,000 |
| ERIE HOMES FOR CHILDREN & ADULTS | $50,000 |
| SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK | $50,000 |
| EMMAUS MINISTRIES | $30,000 |
| FAMILY SERVICES OF NW PA | $25,000 |
| INNOCENCE PROJECT | $25,000 |
| INNER CITY NEIGHBORHOOD ART HOUSE | $25,000 |
| ST JOSEPH HEALTH FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| JULIA HOSPICE & PALLIATIVE CARE | $20,000 |
| EXPERIENCE CHILDREN'S MUSEUM | $20,000 |
| ERIE PHILHARMONIC | $20,000 |
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, $154k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
77 repeat relationships — 42 still active in FY2024, 35 since wound down; 8 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, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $100k 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
- JEJEFFERSON EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY OF ERIE INC7× · 2018–2024 · $783k · revenue +12% · 29% of their budget
- EZErie Zoological Society7× · 2017–2023 · $226k · revenue +30%
- UWUnited Way of Erie County8× · 2017–2024 · $175k · revenue +39%
Funded once
- LELAKE ERIE ARBORETUM AT FRONTIERone grant, 2021 · $28k · revenue -31%
- EHERIE HUNT AND SADDLE CLUB INCone grant, 2021 · $20k
- CHCOMMUNITY HEALTH NETone grant, 2019 · $20k · revenue +16%
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.
To facilitate both the creation and retention of jobs within erie county and increase economic opportunities for individuals and businesses through comprehensive economic development programs.
The mission of the erie cancer wellness center is to support those living with cancer and the people that care for them through free of charge programs and services that promote physical, emotional and mental healing.
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…
The erie community foundation works to improve the quality of life for all in our region by evaluating and addressing community issues, building permanent charitable endowments, and by promoting philanthropic and community leadership.
Motivated by the belief that healthcare is a human right, erie family health centers, inc. (erie) provides high quality, affordable care to support healthier people, families and communities. erie's mission is an outgrowth of the civil…
Erie day school is a co-educational, independent elementary school (toddler through grade 8) located in erie, pa. our educational approach values the individual talents, traits, and abilities of our students.
To provide emergency medical services with advanced and basic life support capabilities, ambulance transportation services, and providing trained personnel to assist local fire departments.
Ehca foundation (the "foundation") is a pennsylvania nonprofitcorporation and was organized as a supporting organization. thefoundation will be operated exclusively for the benefit of, and toperform functions on behalf of, erie homes for…
Erie neighborhood house provides the most comprehensive support to immigrant and low-income families in chicago. our mission is to empower our communitylatinx immigrants alongside individuals and families of all backgroundsthrough…
UPMC Williamsport is a subsidiary of UPMC Susquehanna. The mission of UPMC Susquehanna and its subsidiaries is to serve the community by providing outstanding patient care and shaping tomorrow's health care through clinical and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Erie Homes for Children & Adults Inc and the most unlike its peers is Upper Room of Erie. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 48 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
69 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. 69 of the 122 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 JEFFERSON EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY OF ERIE INC ↗
- Who funds Erie Zoological Society ↗
- Who funds United Way of Erie County ↗
- Who funds ERIE HOMES FOR CHILDREN & ADULTS INC ↗
- Who funds CITY MISSION OF THE EVANGELICAL CHURCHES OF ERIE ↗
- Who funds Flagship Niagara League ↗
- Who funds MERCY CENTER FOR WOMEN INC ↗
- Who funds ExpERIEnce Children's Museum ↗
- Who funds PUBLIC BROADCASTING OF NORTHWEST PENNSYLVANIA INC ↗
- Who funds HAMOT HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ERIE CIVIC THEATRE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Community Shelter Services Inc ↗
- Who funds St Pauls Free Clinic Inc ↗
- Who funds THE INNOCENCE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds SAFENET INC ↗
- Who funds ERIE DAWN INC ↗
- Who funds Erie Maritime Foundation Bayfront Maritime Center ↗
- Who funds Erie Regional Library Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF ERIE INC ↗
- Who funds SARAH A REED CHILDREN'S CENTER ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds BOCA RATON MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds ERIE ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds SHRINERS HOSPITALS FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds LAKE ERIE ARBORETUM AT FRONTIER ↗
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: Erie Community Foundation · Wabtec Foundation · Merwin Foundation · The Britton Family Foundation · Kern Family Foundation Inc · United Way of Erie County · Northwest Charitable Foundation · Firstenergy Foundation · Ge Aerospace Foundation · John M & Gertrude E Petersen Foundation · McBrier Foundation · The Arts Council of Erie
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 M J Surgala Tr 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.
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc — 7% of income from government
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% of income from government
- Shriners Hospitals for Children — 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.
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How do I get to M J Surgala Tr?
Find your warmest path to M J Surgala Tr 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.