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Plinth

· Public charity

Northwest Indiana Forum Foundation Inc

Working to meet environmental and educational concerns, promoting economic development and growth in northwest indiana, and secure grants to accomplish environmental and educational goals.

$7.6M
Granted FY2024still arriving
36
Grants FY2024still arriving
4
States reached
$1.5M
Largest
01What you fund
01100% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY20222024.

Community Improvement$9.0MRecreation & Sports$1.5MHealth$1.0MEmployment$676kHuman Services$651kReligion$559kArts & Culture$493kPhilanthropy$400kOther$0
02FY2024 · 36 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k1 grant · $9k
  • $10k–50k10 grants · $265k
  • $50k–250k17 grants · $2.1M
  • $250k+8 grants · $5.2M
$76,696
Median grant
4
States reached
$1.4M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
URSCHEL DEVELOPMENT CORP$1,500,000
HEALTHLINC INC$940,000
VALPARAISO REDEVELOPMENT COMMISSION$614,995
SAXON PARTNERS LLC$558,551
CROSSROADS YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS$437,793
GARY CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY$435,417
WECREATE MEDIA LLC$387,517
UNITED WAY OF NORTHWEST INDIANA$352,814
CENTER OF WORKFORCE INNOVATIONS$242,953
NORTHWEST INDIANA FORUM INC$213,830
FIRST THINGS FIRST PORTER COUNTY$200,000
CENTER OF WORKFORCE INNOVATIONS$187,345
LOWER LINCOLN ESO INC$178,681
CENTER OF WORKFORCE INNOVATIONS$172,228
THOMAS P MILLER & ASSOCIATES LLC$147,156
02The need
03

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 (FY24–24, $504k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, 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.

area typical 11%URBAN LEAGUE OF NORTHWEST INDIANA INC: $66k → 15%CROSSROADS YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS: $438k → 15%0%20%40%50%more need →
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 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.

04

Where the work is directed

The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.

About 5% of Northwest Indiana Forum Foundation Inc’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 96% of the giving stays in IN; read by stated purpose it is 92% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.

Northwest Indiana Forum Foundation Inclessmore of its giving
Placed by recipient address · 3.5% directed abroad (not shown)

Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.

03Your 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
Leadership Indianapolis Inc

Educate, Inspire, Connect and Mobilize Community Leaders to serve and strengthen greater Indianapolis.

Public Benefit
2
Greater Laporte Economic Development Corporation

To recruit new business and industry into the laporte county area and combat community deterioration by promoting stability, growth, and development of business and industry.

Community Improvement
3
Indiana Innovation Council Inc

Promote and educate indiana residents on the state's economic success and positive gains.

4
Northeast Indiana Innovation Center Inc

We are a comprehensive entrepreneurial center whose mission is putting business growth, innovation and entrepreneurship to work for northeast indiana

Community Improvement
5
Greater Laporte Chamber of Commerce Inc

Chamber of commerce for laporte, indiana

6
Indiana University Alumni Association Inc

The indiana university alumni association activates and supports the global alumni network- encouraging alumni to grow a lifelong connection with indiana university, and inspiring their ongoing generosity toward each other and the…

7
Central Indiana Corporate Partnership Inc

Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…

Community Improvement
8
Innovation Connector Inc

To be east central indiana's primary sponsor bringing in technological firms.

Community Improvement
9
Indiana Agribusiness Council Inc

An agribusiness network advocate, representing members' interests within all levels of government and keeping members informed of the latest industry trends and news.

10
The Indianapolis Foundation Inc

To mobilize people, ideas, and investments to make this a community where all individuals have equitable opportunity to reach their full potential - no matter place, race or identity.

Community Improvement
11
Tri-County Workforce Investment Board Inc

Activities of tcwib include only those specifically designated under the workforce innovation and opportunity act (wioa).

Employment
12
Jay County Development Corporation

Encourage business to originate, expand current facilities, or relocate to areas within jay county, indiana, in order to expand job opportunities of the residents of jay county, indiana

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Northwest Indiana Forum Inc and the most unlike its peers is Jasper County Economic Development Organization. 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

14 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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 14 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.

2
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
14/14
Grantees still filing
2/14
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

INDIANA ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION — $7,225,006 · OtherINDIANA ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATIONURSCHEL DEVELOPMENT CORP — $1,500,000 · OtherURSCHEL DEVELOPMENT CORPHEALTHLINC INC — $940,000 · OtherHEALTHLINC INCVALPARAISO PARKS DEPARTMENT — $614,995 · OtherSAXON PARTNERS LLC — $558,551 · OtherGARY CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AUTHORITY — $512,113 · Other+10 more — $1,173,150 · Other+10 moreTHE CENTER OF WORKFORCE INNOVATIONS INC — $675,613 · Community ImprovementJASPER COUNTY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION — $56,000 · Community ImprovementUNITED WAY OF NORTHWEST INDIANA INC — $352,814 · PhilanthropyPORTER COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC — $273,082 · PhilanthropyLEGACY FOUNDATION INC — $55,954 · PhilanthropyCROSSROADS YMCA INC — $437,793 · Human ServicesURBAN LEAGUE OF NW INDIANA INC — $65,750 · Human ServicesLOWER LINCOLN ESO INC — $178,681 · EducationINNOVATORS NORTHWEST INDIANA INC — $86,386 · EducationSHIRLEY HEINZE LAND TRUST INC — $62,697 · EnvironmentNWI FOOD COUNCIL INC — $20,987 · Food & Nutrition
Other$12,523,815Community Improvement$731,613Philanthropy$681,850Human Services$503,543Education$265,067Environment$62,697Food & Nutrition$20,987

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetHEALTHLINC INC — $940,000 over 1y, 1.1% of budgetTHE CENTER OF WORKFORCE INNOVATIONS INC — $675,613 over 1y, 4.5% of budgetCROSSROADS YMCA INC — $437,793 over 1y, 0.7% of budgetUNITED WAY OF NORTHWEST INDIANA INC — $352,814 over 1y, 8.1% of budgetNORTHWEST INDIANA FORUM INC — $292,517 over 1y, 26% of budgetPORTER COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC — $273,082 over 1y, 1.5% of budgetINNOVATORS NORTHWEST INDIANA INC — $86,386 over 1y, 91% of budgetURBAN LEAGUE OF NW INDIANA INC — $65,750 over 1y, 10% of budgetSHIRLEY HEINZE LAND TRUST INC — $62,697 over 1y, 1.3% of budgetJASPER COUNTY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ORGANIZATION — $56,000 over 1y, 13% of budgetLEGACY FOUNDATION INC — $55,954 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetMICHIGAN CITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORP — $26,667 over 1y, 3.1% of budgetNWI FOOD COUNCIL INC — $20,987 over 1y, 0.9% of budget
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.

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.

Nisource Charitable FoundationOH16.8× affinity6 shared granteesties to 3 of 3Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Nisource Charitable Foundation · John W Anderson Foundation · Legacy Foundation Inc · 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 Northwest Indiana Forum 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.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 00%6%25%56%100%your share of their income ↑0%13%25%38%50%share of the org’s income from government
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    7report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–50%
    typical government reliance, FY2025

    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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 27 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

    Generated from your IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    More from the funding graph