· Private foundation
Nafzger Family Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k10 grants · $23k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $33k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SAMARITAN'S PURSE | $33,000 |
| ST PATRICK CATHOLIC SCHOOL | $6,826 |
| FOOD FOR THE POOR | $5,241 |
| HERITAGE HOUSE INC | $5,000 |
| SDSU FOUNDATION | $3,000 |
| KENTUCKY RACETRACK CHAPLAINCY | $1,000 |
| RD CARE CENTER | $500 |
| CHRIST CHURCH UNITED METHODIST | $300 |
| SAYRE SCHOOL | $300 |
| OLTON VOLUNTEER AMBULANCE ASSN | $250 |
| Individual grant recipient | $250 |
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 (FY18–20, $800) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 38% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +60% since the first grant, against +36% for the ones you funded once.
35 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2024, 29 since wound down; 5 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, 77% 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
- SPSAMARITAN'S PURSE6× · 2019–2024 · $74k · revenue +151%
- SDSOUTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2024 · $30k · revenue +78%
- TBTHE BACKSIDE LEARNING CENTER INC6× · 2018–2023 · $24k · revenue +337%
Funded once
- PJPAUL JEREMY SPECIAL ACCOUNTone grant, 2022 · $3k
- SPST PETER CLAVER CATHOLIC CHURCHone grant, 2018 · $2k
- SJST JOHNS LUTHERAN CHURCHone grant, 2023 · $1k
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.
Horse country, inc. is a coordinated equine industry initiative to connect guests to the horse, land, and people of kentucky's signature equine industry through immerserive experiences at unique member locations. horse country, inc.…
To provide exclusively for the benefit, aid, relief, and assistance of the racing personnel employed in connection with horse racing who can demonstrate their need for financial assistance.
The organization is dedicated to the improvement of thoroughbred breeding and racing. It fulfills that mandate by serving many segments of the industry through its subsidiary companies and by providing support to a wide range of industry…
The harness racing museum & hall of fame is dedicated to comprehensive, active and authoritative support and promotion of the standardbred racing through documentation and preservation of the history and traditions of this american-born…
Kentucky thoroughbred owners & breeders foundation, inc. (ktob foundation) supports and funds equine research, in particular research to study and find a prevention or cure to the condition in horses commonly known as mare reproductive…
Providing equine veterinary hospital facilities and support services in the care of injured or sick race horses
To advertise, foster and promote the thoroughbred horse industry in the commonwealth of kentucky
Established in 1943, the foundation is a charitable trust that provides, on a confidential basis, financial relief and assistance to members of the thoroughbred industry who are in need. assistance is available nationwide, and includes…
The organization provides health and welfare benefits to individuals and their families who work in occupations directly related to the care of thoroughbred horses in california.
Gateway horseworks incorporates horses for the mental health treatment of people
To preserve the traditions and promote the heritage of our beautiful athletic horses, through active engagement of the general public and equine community by expanding interest and appeal in our breed.
The kentucky horse park foundation's sole purpose is to provide support for the kentucky horse park.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Backside Learning Center Inc and the most unlike its peers is Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame 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 35 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% 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 13% 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.
34 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. 34 of the 74 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 SAMARITAN'S PURSE ↗
- Who funds SOUTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE BACKSIDE LEARNING CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Kentucky Race Track Chaplaincy Inc ↗
- Who funds FOOD FOR THE POOR INC ↗
- Who funds CAL FARLEY'S BOYS RANCH ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL MUSEUM OF RACING INC ↗
- Who funds Heritage House Inc ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST PARKINSON SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Old Friends Inc ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL KENTUCKY RIDING FOR HOPE INC ↗
- Who funds HOPE HEALTH CLINIC INC ↗
- Who funds OCALA FARM MINISTRY INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL COWBOY AND WESTERN HERITAGE MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds OLTON VOLUNTEER AMBULANCE ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL EQUESTRIANS INC ↗
- Who funds TEXAS COWBOY HALL OF FAME INC ↗
- Who funds CHURCHILL DOWNS INCORPORATED FOUNDATION ↗
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: Mary K Oxley Foundation · Thoroughbred Charities of America Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Inc · The Charles and Mary Heider Family Foundation · Blue Grass Community Foundation Inc · The Brian Ratner Foundation · Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels Inc · The Jockey Club Safety Net Foundation · C F Pollard Foundation Inc · W L Lyons Brown Foundation · The Community Foundation of Louisville Corporate Depository Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Depository 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 Nafzger Family 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Florida Sheriffs Association Inc — 4% of income from government
- Special Equestrians Inc — 2% of income from government
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% of income from government
- Food for the Poor 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.