· Private foundation
McLain Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k9 grants · $43k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $25k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $15,000 |
| ROSWELL PARK ALLIANCE | $10,000 |
| UNICEF USA | $6,000 |
| THE CHILDRENS HOSPITAL OF BUFFALO | $6,000 |
| THE CHILDRENS HOSPITAL OF BUFFALO | $6,000 |
| CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY | $6,000 |
| WORLD VISION FUND | $6,000 |
| SAVE THE CHILDREN | $5,000 |
| DAVID LAWRENCE CENTER FOR | $5,000 |
| UNVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME | $2,000 |
| SPECIALISTERNE USA | $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 (FY17–22, $18k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +48% since the first grant, against +16% for the ones you funded once.
47 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2025, 44 since wound down; 7 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, 25% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $51k 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
- HFHOLY FAMILY COMMUNICATIONS8× · 2017–2024 · $101k · revenue +79%
UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF3× · 2021–2025 · $18k · revenue +64%
FRIENDS OF THE WORLD FOOD PROGRAM INC2× · 2021–2022 · $16k · revenue +117%
Funded once
OXFAM-AMERICA INCone grant, 2023 · $11k · revenue -7%- WFWORLD FOOD PROGRAM USAone grant, 2024 · $9k
- HFHEARTS FOR THE HOMELESSone grant, 2023 · $6k
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.
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
We, at ch, humbly join together to bring christ's healing mission and the mission of mercy of the catholic church expressed in catholic health care to our communities.
We, at ch, humbly join together to bring christ's healing mission and the mission of mercy of the catholic church expressed in catholic health care to our communities.
We, at ch, humbly join together to bring christ's healing mission and the mission of mercy of the catholic church expressed in catholic health care to our communities.
We, at ch, humbly join together to bring christ's healing mission and the mission of mercy of the catholic church expressed in catholic health care to our communities.
We, at ch, humbly join together to bring christ's healing mission and the mission of mercy of the catholic church expressed in catholic health care to our communities.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Children's Hospital of Buffalo Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Project Lee Ministries Inc. 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 38 years old; the field is 18. 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 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
39 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. 39 of the 75 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 HOLY FAMILY COMMUNICATIONS ↗
- Who funds ROSWELL PARK ALLIANCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE WORLD FOOD PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF BUFFALO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AUTISM SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds OXFAM-AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD VISION INC ↗
- Who funds COOPERATIVE FOR ASSISTANCE AND RELIEF EVERYWHERE INC ↗
- Who funds SPECIALISTERNE USA ↗
- Who funds CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Save The Children Federation Inc ↗
- Who funds ST MATTHEWS HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds NICHOLS SCHOOL OF BUFFALO ↗
- Who funds Chesterton Academy of Buffalo ↗
- Who funds NIAGARA FRONTIER RADIO READING SERVICE 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: Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo Inc · The John R Oishei Foundation · The Peter and Elizabeth C Tower Foundation · Children's Foundation of Erie County Inc · James H Cummings Foundation Inc · The Saperston Family Foundation · The Osc Charitable Foundation · Cullen Foundation · Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies Inc · Clement and Karen Arrison Family Charitable Foundation · The Hunt Charitable Foundation Inc · Red Top 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 McLain 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.
- Save the Children Federation Inc — 30% of income from government
- University of Miami — 5% of income from government
- Oxfam-America Inc — 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.