· Public charity
Optimist International Foundation
The OPTIMIST INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION, incorporated in february 1971, is a foundation and charitable corporation established for the general purpose of soliciting and receiving gifts, donations and bequests of money and property to be used for the furtherance of the charitable and educational efforts and activities of optimist…
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.
The 17 grants below total $290,935 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $1,193,122 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $902,187 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k6 grants · $47k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $164k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $80k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| OPTIMIST CLUB OF MIAMI BEACH NORTH SHORE FL | $80,000 |
| OPTIMIST CLUB OF TERRE HAUTE IN | $34,040 |
| PLATTE COUNTY OPTIMIST CLUB OF MISSOURI | $25,000 |
| OPTIMIST CLUB OF ZIONSVILLE IN | $19,750 |
| OPTIMIST CLUB OF RENO NV | $14,250 |
| OPTIMIST CLUB OF SPRINGFIELD-WESTSIDE MO | $13,631 |
| OPTIMIST CLUB OF OLATHE KS | $13,580 |
| OPTIMIST CLUB OF DANVILLE VA | $12,000 |
| NOON OPTIMIST CLUB OF MARSHALL INC TX | $12,000 |
| SAWNEE OPTIMIST CLUB OF CUMMING GA | $10,100 |
| OPTIMIST CLUB OF PASO ROBLES CA | $10,000 |
| OPTIMIST CLUB OF DENVER- MONACO SOUTH CO | $8,705 |
| OPTIMIST CLUB OF KIEL WI | $8,649 |
| OPTIMIST CLUB OF WINTER HAVEN FL | $8,450 |
| OPTIMIST CLUB OF GASTONIA NC | $8,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 79% of your 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 +12% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
23 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down; 4 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, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $36k 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
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY3× · 2017–2019 · $238k · revenue +64%- OCOPTIMIST CLUB OF TERRE HAUTE INC6× · 2020–2025 · $120k · revenue +49% · 36% of their budget
- TCTWIN CITY AREA OPTIMIST CLUB8× · 2017–2024 · $83k · revenue +12%
Funded once
- OIOPTIMIST INTERNATIONAL EAST LINCOLNgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $78k · revenue +73%
- OCoptimist club of holdrege neone grant, 2017 · $47k
- LSLINCOLN SPORTS COMPLEX OPTIMISTone grant, 2018 · $25k · 31% of their budget
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.
By providing hope and positive vision, optimists bring out the best in youth, our communities and ourselves.
Optimist club whose primary objective is supporting youth
To promote youth and communities
Fundraising to donate to local schools, scholarships, and community grants
Supporting youth programs
Raise money for community service and youth activities. support for youth sports and related activities
To support youth and community need in merrill wi
Provide local programs that educate youth emotionally, physically & culturally.
Youth Services "Bringing Out the Best in Youth"
Optimist international's mission is to foster an optimistic way of life through a network of optimists dedicated to the full development of their potential in order to provide ever-expanding service to youth, the community and the world.
Provide funding and scholorships to benefit local youth and youth-based community organizations
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Optimist International East Lincoln and the most unlike its peers is Johns Hopkins University. 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 68 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) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 12% 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.
20 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. 20 of the 57 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 OPTIMIST INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds OPTIMIST CLUB OF TERRE HAUTE INC ↗
- Who funds OPTIMIST INTERNATIONAL-Denver Monaco South CO ↗
- Who funds Winter Haven Optimist Club Inc ↗
- Who funds TWIN CITY AREA OPTIMIST CLUB ↗
- Who funds OPTIMIST INTERNATIONAL EAST LINCOLN ↗
- Who funds OPTIMIST INTERNATIONAL-CENTERVILLE OHIO NOON ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN SPORTS COMPLEX OPTIMIST ↗
- Who funds OPTIMIST CLUB OF FREDERICKSBURG ↗
- Who funds THE OPTIMIST CLUB OF NAPA CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds COVINA VALLEY OPTIMIST CLUB ↗
- Who funds OPTIMIST INTERNATIONAL Watertown Optimist Club ↗
- Who funds OPTIMIST CLUB OF MENOMONEE FALLS INC ↗
- Who funds Optimist International 21319 Woodstock Midday ↗
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Optimist International 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.
- Johns Hopkins University — 12% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Optimist International Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Optimist International Foundation through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.