Loading…
· Private foundation
NELSON & VERA HICKS CHARITABLE FDN
This foundation accepts unsolicited grant applications.
$259k
Granted FY2025
42
Grants
2
Communities
$26k
Largest
01What you fund
01
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 78% of NELSON & VERA HICKS CHARITABLE FDN’s grantee dollars go to organizations outside the IRS cause taxonomy (common for large international and research funders), so a chart would be mostly “unclassified” and misrepresent the portfolio.
02beneath the categories
Past the labels — and the year it shifted
Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.
…and in their own words, year by year
2018
—
2019
arts
2020
arts
2021
arts
2022
arts
2023
arts
2024
arts
2025
arts
Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.
03FY2025 · 42 grants
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k31 grants · $110k
- $10k–50k11 grants · $150k
$5,000
Median grant
2
States reached
$7.5M
Total assets
Largest grants
- YMCA OF DODGE COUNTY$26,000
- ST AMBROSE ACADEMY$20,000
- CHURCH HEALTH SERVICES$15,000
- BEAVER DAM SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION$12,500
- MORAINE PARK TECHNICAL COLLEGE$12,000
- GREEN VALLEY ENTERPRISES & ALZHEIMER UNIT$12,000
- MADISON AREA TECHNICAL COLLEGE$12,000
- CHARISH CLASSICAL ACADEMY$10,000
- WORLD ORPHAN FUND$10,000
- ST VINCENT DEPAUL BEAVER DAM$10,000
- RAWHIDE BOYS RANCH$10,000
- PEDIATRICS ONCOLOGY RESEARCH FUND$5,000
- JUNEAU PUBLIC LIBRARY$5,000
- HUTCHINSON MEMORIAL LIBRARY$5,000
- SALVATION ARMY OF DANE COUNTY$5,000
02The need
04
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.
show:
Your human-services grants (FY17–25, $84k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8% — the area typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
03Your edge
repeat funding
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.
100%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$2.3M · 55 repeat orgs$10k to everyone else
55 repeat relationships — 42 still active in FY2025, 13 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Re-uppedFunded once
Organizations
55
2
Total granted
$2.3M
$10k
Still filing today
22%
0%
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.
RenewedFirst-time
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
Human ServicesHealthReligionPhilanthropyEducationInternationalOther
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
- CHCHURCH HEALTH SERVICES9× · 2017–2025 · $135k · revenue +99%
- BDBEAVER DAM SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION9× · 2017–2025 · $101k · revenue +91%
WORLD ORPHAN FUND9× · 2017–2025 · $55k · revenue +766%
Funded once
- SMST MARK'S EPISCOPAL CHURCHone grant, 2022 · $8k
- ROREACH OUT AND READ - CHILDREN'S HEALTH ALLIANCE WIone grant, 2022 · $3k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
04Your field
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.
1
Our Lady of Hope Clinic Inc
Serve the medical needs of individuals who cannot afford (or otherwise do not have access to) private medical care in and around dane county, wisconsin.
Health
2
Help of Door County Inc
Working with victims of domestic violence and providing supervised visitation and exchanges for children and non custodial parent
Health
3
Door County Ymca Inc
Practice christian principles through programs that build healthy spirit, mind, and body.
Education
4
Ywca of Fort Dodge Ia
We are a state licensed substance abuse facility which functions to provide a clinically managed residence treatment center for women and women with children.
—
5
Disability Rights Wisconsin Inc
Legal protection and advocacy to protect the rights of people with disabilities in wisconsin.
—
6
Beaver Dam Community Hospitals Inc
We enrich lives to create healthy communities through accessible, affordable, compassionate health care.
Health
7
Dorothy Day Capital Corporation
To support the functions of and to assist in carrying out the purposes of Catholic Charities.
Religion
8
Domestic Abuse Intervention Services
Domestic abuse intervention services offers a wide array of crisis intervention and community education/prevention programs, including a 24-hour help line, programming for children from violent homes, legal advocacy, support groups,…
Human Services
9
Door County Community Foundation Inc
Inspiring people to give back to sustain and advance the community we love.
Philanthropy
10
Dakota County Technical College
Utilize board strengths and community connections to influence dctc in maintaining relevancy & attracting & retaining students while supporting their resource & financial needs of current and future students in a meaningful & sustainable…
—
11
Wisconsin Dental Association Inc
Advance the interests of wda members and the dental profession by promoting professional excellence and quality oral health care for the public.
Community Improvement
12
Dallas County Dental Society Foundation
Provide dental benefits to texas citizens in need
Health
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Ymca of Dodge County Inc and the most unlike its peers is Opportunity International Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
05the grantee network
12 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.
0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
6
Early backer (in before they grew)
12/12
Grantees still filing
8/12
Grew since you first funded
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Other$1,845,000Religion$135,000Philanthropy$100,500Education$96,000Human Services$84,000Food & Nutrition$25,000Membership Benefit$20,000
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 CHURCH HEALTH SERVICES ↗
- Who funds BEAVER DAM SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MADISON AREA TECHNICAL COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds WORLD ORPHAN FUND ↗
- Who funds YMCA OF DODGE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds THE GATHERING SOURCE ↗
- Who funds PREGNANCY SUPPORT CENTER OF DODGE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL ↗
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.
The Peter J Seippel Foundation IncWI20.4× affinity7 shared granteesties to 7 of 7Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →
Open a dossier: The Peter J Seippel Foundation Inc · Keller Family Charitable Trust · Duane and Kathleen Foulkes · United Way of Dodge County Inc · The Jack and Arlene Schumann · Beaver Dam Community Hospitals · Green Bay Packers Foundation · 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 organisation NELSON & VERA HICKS CHARITABLE FDN 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.
2024
’20’21’22’23’24
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–20%
typical government reliance, FY20–24
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. 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.
05Through Plinth
Through Plinth
Your grantmaking, live and operational
This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: BEAVER DAM SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION.
Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk
Financial management
low risk
~10 months of operating runway; revenue grew over 8 filed years.
Track record & reputation
low risk
8 years of Form 990 filings, still active; revenue up +91% since.
Legal standing
low risk
US 501(c)(3); EIN 411700851 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.
Governance
Live in Plinth
Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.
Compliance & sanctions
Live in Plinth
OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.
Program capacity
Live in Plinth
Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.
Live · Plinth’s real DD engine
Run the actual assessment on BEAVER DAM SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION, cold from public data.
Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.
Post-award monitoring · continuous checks
- On trackFinancial stability— Roughly 10 months of cash on hand.
- On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2024; revenue grew over the period.
- On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 5% of their budget — diversified.
- Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.
What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.
Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing
Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro
How do I get to Nelson & Vera Hicks Charitable Fdn?
Find your warmest path to Nelson & Vera Hicks Charitable Fdn through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.
Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.
More from the funding graph
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars pass through an intermediary
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
Strange bedfellows
the named clusters of US funding
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home
State money flows
the interactive map of money crossing state lines