How much does Optimist International Foundation give?

Optimist International Foundation reported 17 itemized grants totaling $290,935, out of $1,193,122 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 11 and 24 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Optimist International Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Youth Development (30%), Recreation & Sports (22%), International (17%).

Who are Optimist International Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Optimist International ($439k), Optimist Club of Miami Beach North Shore Fl ($284k), Johns Hopkins University ($238k).

Does Optimist International Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 14% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Where is Optimist International Foundation based?

Optimist International Foundation is based in MO.

Optimist International Foundation

Optimist International Foundation at a glance Also receives grants: funding profile →

· 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…

$1.2M

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$80k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Youth Development$702kRecreation & Sports$527kInternational$395kArts & Culture$369kHealth$267kReligion$59kEducation$40kScience & Tech$14kOther$0

02FY2025 · 17 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured

The 17 grants below total $290,935, the rows itemized in this filing. The $1,193,122 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $902,187 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k6 grants · $47k
$10k–50k10 grants · $164k
$50k–250k1 grant · $80k

$12,000

Median grant

States reached

$16M

Total assets

Largest grants
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
NOON OPTIMIST CLUB OF MARSHALL INC TX	$12,000
OPTIMIST CLUB OF DANVILLE VA	$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

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 79% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

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.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

83%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$2.0M · 23 repeat orgs$401k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +12% since the first grant, against 0% for those 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

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$2.0M

$365k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+12%

Still filing today

26%

37%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $36k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EducationPhilanthropyHealthOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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 UNIVERSITY
3× · 2017–2019 · $238k · revenue +64%
OC
OPTIMIST CLUB OF TERRE HAUTE INC
6× · 2020–2025 · $120k · revenue +49% · 36% of their budget
TC
TWIN CITY AREA OPTIMIST CLUB
8× · 2017–2024 · $83k · revenue +12%

Funded once

OI
OPTIMIST INTERNATIONAL EAST LINCOLNgraduated
one grant, 2018 · $78k · revenue +87%
OC
optimist club of holdrege ne
one grant, 2017 · $47k
LS
LINCOLN SPORTS COMPLEX OPTIMIST
one grant, 2018 · $25k · 31% of their budget

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Optimist Club of Strongsville Ohio

By providing hope and positive vision, optimists bring out the best in youth, our communities and ourselves.

—

Optimist Club of Quincy

Optimist club whose primary objective is supporting youth

—

Optimist Club of Gulf Breeze Fl Inc

Fundraising to donate to local schools, scholarships, and community grants

Philanthropy

Optimist International

To promote youth and communities

—

Optimist Club of Howard-Suamico

Supporting youth programs

—

Mt Vernon Optimist Club

Service of youths of the community through sports programs, scholarships and school activities.

—

Optimist Club of Vista

Raise money for community service and youth activities. support for youth sports and related activities

—

Optimist Club of Merrill Wisconsin Inc

To support youth and community need in merrill wi

—

Optimist Club of Panama City Beach

Provide local programs that educate youth emotionally, physically & culturally.

—

Optimist Club of Arlington Tx

Youth Services "Bringing Out the Best in Youth"

—

Lakeside Optimist Youth Foundation

—

Ocean City-Berlin Optimist Youth Foundation Inc

Provide funding and scholorships to benefit local youth and youth-based community organizations

Philanthropy

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Optimist International East Lincoln; 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.

04the grantee network

20 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 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.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

17/20

Grantees still filing

10/20

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$2,128,151Education$237,624Philanthropy$7,000Health$5,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Optimist International Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Optimist International Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

2get no government money at all

2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–20%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

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.

Play a game based on Optimist International’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home