· Private foundation
Powers-Wolfe Charitable Trust
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2022–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k3 grants · $17k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $130k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $75k
- $250k+1 grant · $410k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $410,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $75,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF WISCONSIN INC | $20,000 |
| NRDC | $15,000 |
| THE CLEARING FOLK SCHOOL | $15,000 |
| WILDERNESS SOCIETY | $15,000 |
| ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND | $15,000 |
| WIS ACADEMY | $10,000 |
| EAGLE SCHOOL - ANDY WRIGHT DIRECTOR | $10,000 |
| WOMEN'S MEDICAL FUND | $10,000 |
| WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO | $10,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $10,000 |
| SOUTHERN WISCONSIN BIRD ALLIANCE | $7,500 |
| BACH DANCING AND DYNAMITE SOCIETY | $5,000 |
| THE FOUNDRY | $4,000 |
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 (FY22–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 12% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
46 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2024, 33 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $12k 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
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED3× · 2022–2024 · $45k · revenue +56%
WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO ASSOCIATION INC3× · 2022–2024 · $30k · revenue +28%
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC3× · 2022–2024 · $30k · revenue +13%
Funded once
- UFUW FOUNDATION SCIENCE INITIATIVEone grant, 2022 · $4k
- UFUW FOUNDATION - LAKESHORE NATURE PRESERVEone grant, 2022 · $2k
- FOFRIENDS OF LAKESHORE PRESERVEone grant, 2023 · $2k
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.
To protect, conserve, and enhance wisconsin's natural resources by advocating for and supporting county conservation efforts, for current and future generations.
To promote public health, safety, and welfare through the improvement of the quality and quantity of drinking water and the development and furtherance of understanding of the problems relating thereto.
Nacwa is the national voice of public clean water utilities, shaping water policy, convening a vibrant peer network, and empowering water leaders.
Midwest dairy works with others to give consumers an excellent dairy experience increasing sales, fostering innovation, and inspiring consumer confidence of dairy products and practices.
The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
To protect wisconsin's lands, waters, and wildlife by providing funding, leading partnerships, and connecting all people with nature.
Midwest environmental advocates is a nonprofit law center that combines the power of law with the resolve of communities facing environmental injustice to secure and protect the rights of all people to healthy water, land, and air.
Gathering waters (wisconsin's alliance for land trusts) strengthens land trusts to protect wisconsin's special places and grow healthy, vibrant communities. the stronger the alliance between gathering waters' staff and board members, land…
The purpose of the association shall be to restore and conserve wisconsin's waterfowl and wetland resources; to educate state waterfowlers during their progression from natural resource consumer to steward; and to promote governmental…
Promote a positive state legislative and regulatory climate for wisconsin's community health plans. the association communicates with regulatory agencies to promote issue positions representing community health plans.
The montana wildlife federation is a statewide conservation organization dedicated to protecting wildlife, wildlife habitat, and public access for outdoor recreation.
Wetlands america trust, inc. is a nonprofit organization formed in 1985 to expand ducks unlimited, inc's mission to provide leadership in the protection of the natural balance of wetlands ecosystems ensuring the future viability of…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The River Alliance of Wisconsin Inc and the most unlike its peers is International Rescue Committee Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 41 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 17% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 8% 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.
23 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. 23 of the 52 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 PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S MEDICAL FUND INC ↗
- Who funds WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds DRIFTLESS AREA LAND CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN WISCONSIN BIRD ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds MADISON PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Agrace HospiceCare Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds MATHEMATICAL STAIRCASE ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CONSTITUTION SOCIETY FOR LAW & POLICY ↗
- Who funds AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL OF THE USA INC ↗
- Who funds International Rescue Committee INC ↗
- Who funds THE RIDGES SANCTUARY INC ↗
- Who funds THE RIVER ALLIANCE OF WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF DANE COUNTY INC ↗
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.
Open a dossier: Madison Community Foundation · Alliant Energy Foundation Inc · Madison Gas and Electric Foundation Inc · Sandy Oaks Foundation Douglas W Caves · John J Frautschi Family Foundation Inc · The Evjue Foundation Inc · United Way of Dane County Inc · Patagoniaorg · Baird Foundation Inc · Ge Aerospace Foundation · WK Kellogg Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
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 Powers-Wolfe Charitable Trust 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.
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.