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· Public charity

Open Buffalo Inc

Open Buffalo's mission is to advance racial, economic, and ecological justice through skill building, network connecting, and activating leadership opportunities with the ultimate goal for all communities in Western New York to thrive free from discrimination and poverty.

$333k
Granted FY2024still arriving
6
Grants FY2024still arriving
1
States reached
$94k
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 FY20192024.

Human Services$224kYouth Development$203kEducation$108kCivil Rights$93kCommunity Improvement$79kEnvironment$60kFood & Nutrition$60kHousing & Shelter$9k
02FY2024 · 6 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

  • $10k–50k3 grants · $121k
  • $50k–250k3 grants · $212k
$50,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$2.3M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Project Mona's House$93,862
Confident Girl Mentoring Program Inc$68,075
Net Positive Inc (dba The Foundry)$50,000
Omega Mentoring Program$47,856
Voice Buffalo Inc$42,740
Massachusetts Avenue Project inc$30,003
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 (FY23–24, $224k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, 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%Massachusetts Avenue Project inc: $30k → 13%Net Positive Inc (dba The Foundry): $50k → 13%Net Positive Inc (dba The Foundry): $50k → 13%Project Mona's House: $94k → 13%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.

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.

49%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$406k · 3 repeat orgs$429k to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of -13% since the first grant, against -58% for the ones you funded once.

3 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

3
6

Total granted

$406k
$258k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

-13%
-58%

Still filing today

100%
83%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 48% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $172k went to new ones.

50%100%’19’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’19’22’23’24
Human ServicesCommunity ImprovementYouth DevelopmentEducationEnvironmentFood & NutritionOther

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

  • CG
    CONFIDENT GIRL MENTORING PROGRAM INC
    2× · 2023–2024 · $203k · revenue -13% · 44% of their budget
  • VOICE Buffalo Inc
    2× · 2022–2024 · $103k · revenue -61%
  • NP
    Net Positive Inc
    2× · 2023–2024 · $100k · revenue +42%

Funded once

  • TG
    THE GALACTIC TRIBE INC
    one grant, 2022 · $60k · revenue +12% · 40% of their budget
  • CA
    CLEAN AIR COALITION OF WESTERN NEW YORK INC
    one grant, 2022 · $60k · revenue -68%
  • FB
    FEED BUFFALO INC
    one grant, 2022 · $60k · revenue -58%

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
Partnership for the Public Good Inc

Partnership for the Public Good, Inc. is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to help build a more just, sustainable, and culturally vibrant community through action-oriented research, policy development, and citizen engagement.

Community Improvement
2
Open Buffalo Inc

Open Buffalo's mission is to advance racial, economic, and ecological justice through skill building, network connecting, and activating leadership opportunities with the ultimate goal for all communities in Western New York to thrive free…

Human Services
3
Big Big Table Community Cafe Incorporated

Big Big Tables mission is to provide a dignified response to hunger in our community, serving Buffalo with accessible and affordable nutritious meals regardless of ability to pay.

Human Services
4
East Buffalo Development Corporation

East Buffalo Development Corporation is a community-based real estate development corporation committed to our mission of leveraging private and public funds to drive equitable and inclusive eastside planning, construction, land use, and…

Community Improvement
5
Buffalo Institute for Contemporary Art

The Buffalo Institiute for Contemporary Art (Bica) is a art and educational project for Buffalo, NY. Through Innovative exhibitions, cross-discipplinary skills-based programming, and arts ecology development, bica mission is to break down…

Arts & Culture
6
Green Options Buffalo Inc

Promote healthy, environmentally sustainable and community-friendly transportation through advocacy, education, and initiatives to promote healthy lifestyles, civic engagement, economic vitality and improved environments within Greater…

Education
7
Grassroots Gardens of Western New York Inc

Grassroots Gardens of Western New York, Inc.'s mission is to share knowledge, power and resources to grow healthy food, heal systemic harm, and strengthen neighborhood connections through community gardens.

Environment
8
Syracuse Grows Inc

A grassroots network that cultivates food justice through advocacy, education, and resources in support of urban food production.

Food & Nutrition
9
North Buffalo Organization

Searching for opportunities for small business owners in the North Buffalo area to maximize their income by increasing the walkability, cleanliness and beauty of the area. Increase accessablity to residents of good healthy food.

Community Improvement
10
East End Food Institute

East End Food is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support, promote and advocate for farmers and producers, while ensuring everyone in the community can enjoy and be nourished by local food. We envision the East End of Long…

Food & Nutrition
11
Buffalo Initiative Inc

To accelerate treatments for genetic diseases by enabling a collaborative, community-led research ecosystem that is efficient, and focused on impact.

Health
12
Broadway Market Management Inc

To lessen the burdens of government and to foster the creation, retention, and expansion of jobs and economic opportunities for the benefit of the City of Buffalo, New York, and the local economy. The Corporation's operations are conducted…

Community Improvement

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is African Heritage Economic Initiative and the most unlike its peers is Confident Girl Mentoring Program Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 10 of the 12 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)
10/10
Grantees still filing
3/10
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Net Positive Inc — $100,000 · Human ServicesNet Positive IncPROJECT MONAS HOUSE INC — $93,862 · Human ServicesPROJECT MONAS HOUSE INCMassachusetts Avenue Project Inc — $30,003 · Human ServicesMassachusetts Avenue Project I…CONFIDENT GIRL MENTORING PROGRAM INC — $203,075 · Youth DevelopmentCONFIDENT GIRL MENTORING PR…VOICE Buffalo Inc — $102,740 · Community ImprovementVOICE Buffalo IncAfrican Heritage Economic Initiative — $19,000 · Community ImprovementAfrican Heritage …FB Community Land Trust Inc — $8,750 · Community ImprovementFB Community Land…Anchor Church — $50,000 · OtherAnchor ChurchOMEGA MENTORING PROGRAM — $47,856 · OtherOMEGA MENTORI…THE GALACTIC TRIBE INC — $60,000 · EducationCLEAN AIR COALITION OF WESTERN NEW YORK INC — $60,000 · EnvironmentFEED BUFFALO INC — $60,000 · Food & Nutrition
Human Services$223,865Youth Development$203,075Community Improvement$130,490Other$97,856Education$60,000Environment$60,000Food & Nutrition$60,000

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetCONFIDENT GIRL MENTORING PROGRAM INC — $203,075 over 2y, 44% of budgetVOICE Buffalo Inc — $102,740 over 2y, 16% of budgetNet Positive Inc — $100,000 over 2y, 5.5% of budgetPROJECT MONAS HOUSE INC — $93,862 over 1y, 18% of budgetTHE GALACTIC TRIBE INC — $60,000 over 1y, 40% of budgetCLEAN AIR COALITION OF WESTERN NEW YORK INC — $60,000 over 1y, 5.6% of budgetFEED BUFFALO INC — $60,000 over 1y, 7.8% of budgetMassachusetts Avenue Project Inc — $30,003 over 1y, 2.3% of budgetFB Community Land Trust Inc — $8,750 over 1y, 5.9% 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.

Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo IncNY27.8× affinity11 shared granteesties to 5 of 5Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo Inc · The Western New York Foundation · United Way of Buffalo and Erie County · The John R Oishei Foundation · 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 Open Buffalo 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.

2023
202122232425
no gov · 00%3%13%28%50%your share of their income ↑0%10%20%30%40%share of the org’s income from government
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    5report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%
    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 12 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