· Private foundation
Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation
Its FY2023 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ST PAUL'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH | $11,600 |
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 (FY18–21, $4k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, 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.
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.
47 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2023, 46 since wound down.
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 FY2023, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- LSLAUREL SCHOOL4× · 2018–2021 · $40k · revenue +30%
- TTTHE TRUSTEES OF THE SMITH COLLEGE4× · 2018–2021 · $5k · revenue +31%
- USUNIVERSITY SCHOOL4× · 2018–2021 · $4k · revenue +44%
Funded once
- TGTHE GARDEN CLUB OF CLEVELANDgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $230 · revenue +96%
- CFCLEVE FOOD BANKone grant, 2018 · $100
- LPLucky Pup Rescueone grant, 2019 · $50
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 university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.
To protect the environment and health of all ohio communities through legal and policy advocacy, decision-maker accountability, and civic engagement.
Lewis & clark is a premier private higher education institution offering an exceptional education in an inclusive environment. by fostering critical thinking, innovation, creativity, civic engagement, and leadership, both inside and…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The cleveland institute of music's mission is to empower the world's most talented classical music students to fulfill their dreams and potential.
Ceu is committed to promoting the values of open society and self-reflective critical thinking. it aims at excellence in the mastery of established knowledge, courage to pursue the creation of new knowledge in the humanities, the social…
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
Provides innovative education in a dynamic urban setting. dedicated to academic excellence and community engagement,we prepare students of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skill,and experience to lead meaningful lives as informed…
Case Western Reserve University is an independent, research-oriented university with broadly based strengths in health, including medicine, nursing and dentistry; in engineering; in the arts and sciences; and in law, management and social…
Drexel university fulfills its founder's vision of preparing each new generation of students for productive professional and civic lives while also focusing its collective expertise on solving society's greatest problems. drexel is an…
Depauw university develops leaders the world needs through an uncommon commitment to the liberal arts. depauw's diverse and inclusive learning and living experience, distinctive in its rigorous intellectual engagement and its global and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Urban Community School and the most unlike its peers is The Galen Foundation. 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 56 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% 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 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.
32 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. 32 of the 51 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 LAUREL SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THE GALEN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF THE SMITH COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds BENJAMIN ROSE INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Playhouse Square Foundation ↗
- Who funds Bowdoin College ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF BREAKTHROUGH SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds URBAN COMMUNITY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds Beech Brook ↗
- Who funds WESTERN RESERVE LAND CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds NEW DIRECTIONS INC ↗
- Who funds EARTHJUSTICE ↗
- Who funds THE CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS IN HEALTH A NONPROFIT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds LIFEACT ↗
- Who funds THE CLEVELAND MUSIC SCHOOL SETTLEMENT ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds FINCA INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE SERVICES ↗
- Who funds LAND STUDIO INC ↗
- Who funds GREAT LAKES THEATER FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND ↗
- Who funds CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
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 Cleveland Foundation · The Kelvin & Eleanor Smith Foundation · Jewish Federation of Cleveland · Jane and Jon Outcalt Foundation · Emma R Fox Char Trust Mut Fds · The George Gund Foundation · Helen C Cole Charitable Trust · Woodruff Foundation · The O'Neill Brothers Foundation · The Sk Wellman Foundation · Sullivan Family Fund · John P Murphy Foundation
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 Mary and Oliver Emerson 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.
- The Trustees of the Smith College — 1% of income from government
- Partners in Health a Nonprofit Corporation — 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 Mary and Oliver Emerson Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Mary and Oliver Emerson 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.