· Private foundation
Mary Elizabeth Ober Foundation Inc
Its FY2025 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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k9 grants · $37k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $65k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BROWN COUNTY PLAYHOUSE | $15,000 |
| HILLTOP CHRISTIAN CAMP | $10,000 |
| REILLY CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| REACH COLUMBUS | $10,000 |
| SHEPHERD COMMUNITY INC | $10,000 |
| ST PETER'S LUTHERAN CHURCH SCHOOL | $10,000 |
| FIRST CHRISTIAN CHURCH PRESCHOOL | $8,800 |
| AREA 10 COUNCIL ON AGING | $7,500 |
| LOVE CHAPEL ECUMENICAL ASSEMBLY OF | $4,000 |
| OGILVILLE CHURCH DAYCARE | $4,000 |
| WFHBBLOOMINGTON COMMUNITY RADIO | $3,500 |
| GOD'S GRACE INC | $3,000 |
| JOY'S HOUSE ADULT DAY SERVICES | $2,500 |
| MORNING DOVE THERAPEUTIC RIDING | $2,400 |
| CROWN HILL FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
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 (FY20–25, $244k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 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.
16 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 4 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; $13k 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
- SCShepherd Community Inc6× · 2020–2025 · $156k · revenue +52%
- HCHilltop Christian Camp Inc4× · 2020–2025 · $30k · revenue +110%
- 9P91 PLACE INC3× · 2021–2023 · $30k · revenue ×14
Funded once
- SPST PETERS LUTHERAN CHURCHone grant, 2020 · $6k
- RCRILEY CHILDREN'S FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $6k
- OCOGILVILLE CHRISTIAN CHURCHone grant, 2020 · $5k
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.
Residential Faith-based drug and alcohol recovery.
Educate, Inspire, Connect and Mobilize Community Leaders to serve and strengthen greater Indianapolis.
Teaming with families to provide high quality child care and education services for all children.
Supports independence by providing a comfortable, familiar environment for socialization, physical /mental exercise, creative exploration, nursing supervision, and community engagement.
Our mission is to build long-term, life-changing relationships with Indianapolis urban youth, equipping them to thrive and contribute to their community
Trusted journalism, inspiring stories and lifelong learning.
The mission of The Hope Community Development Corporation is to develop faith, caring, and sustainable neighborhoods through quality affordable housing and diverse supportive services for residents
KIPP Indy is a network of tuition-free, open-enrollment, college preparatory, public charter schools. KIPP Indy's mission is to create a network of schools that provides educationally underserved children with a rigorous education that…
The arc of indiana is committed to all people with intellectual and developmental disabilities realizing their goals of living, learning, working and fully participating in the community.
To provide education and assistance to low income, disadvantaged individuals and children.
Surround students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life.
Indiana family to family (inf2f) is a unique statewide family-led organization that provides information, training, and peer support to caregivers of children and youth with special health care needs (cyshcn) and the professionals who…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is 91 Place Inc and the most unlike its peers is Ready to Read Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 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. 10 of the 27 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 Shepherd Community Inc ↗
- Who funds Hilltop Christian Camp Inc ↗
- Who funds 91 PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds REACH COLUMBUS INC ↗
- Who funds COLLEGE MENTORS FOR KIDS INC ↗
- Who funds HUTSON SCHOOL INC DBA FORTUNE ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds Bloomington Community Radio Inc dba WFHB ↗
- Who funds AREA 10 COUNCIL ON AGING OF MONROE AND OWEN COUNTIES INC ↗
- Who funds READY TO READ INC ↗
- Who funds Morning Dove Therapeutic Riding 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: Central Indiana Community Foundation Inc · Lilly Endowment Inc · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Elizabeth Ober Foundation Inc 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 Mary Elizabeth Ober Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Mary Elizabeth Ober Foundation Inc 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.