· Private foundation
Ridgeway Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k50 grants · $95k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $20k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF FINE ART | $20,000 |
| PLANED PARENHOOD SOUTHWEST OHIO | $7,000 |
| VALENTINE RICHMOND HISTORY CENTER | $5,000 |
| CINCINNATI SHAKESPEARE COMPANY | $3,000 |
| CAMPING & EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $3,000 |
| LEWIS GINTER BOTANICAL GARDENS | $3,000 |
| QUEEN CITY POLINATORS PROJECT | $3,000 |
| MAYMONT FOUNDATION | $3,000 |
| COMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS OF RICHMOND | $3,000 |
| RICHMOND SPCA | $3,000 |
| CAPITAL TREES | $3,000 |
| FEED MORE | $3,000 |
| THE HILLSIDE TRUST | $2,500 |
| RICHMOND BALLET | $2,500 |
| SHARE THE HARVEST COMMUNITY FARM | $2,500 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY22–23, $2k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% of those 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.
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.
73 repeat relationships — 46 still active in FY2025, 27 since wound down; 5 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, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $7k 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
- TVTHE VALENTINE MUSEUM9× · 2017–2025 · $42k · revenue +176%
- LGLEWIS GINTER BOTANICAL GARDEN INC9× · 2017–2025 · $34k · revenue +107%
- MFMAYMONT FOUNDATION8× · 2018–2025 · $30k · revenue +130%
Funded once
- SCST CATHERINE'S SCHOOL FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $3k · revenue +188%
- ULUC LIBRARIESUC FOUNDATIONone grant, 2018 · $3k
- CICOMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS OF VAgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $2k · revenue +85%
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.
Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra (CCO) creates intimate, transformative experiences that connect the musically curious.
The Chestnut Hill Conservancy conserves, preserves, and celebrates history, architecture, and landscapes in Chestnut Hill and the lower Wissahickon watershed through inclusive and proactive community engagement, advocacy, and stewardship.
Empowering people. saving wildlife.
To conserve the unique character of tennessee's natural and historic landscapes and sites for future generations.
The museum is an educational corporation formed to ignite a life-long passion for exploring, discovering, and valuing nature and science.
The mission of the cincinnati observatory is to maintain the integrity and heritage of an historic 19th century observatory and to educate, engage, and inspire our community about astronomy and science.
Provide shelter for homeless animals and prevent animal cruelty
The central indiana land trust, inc. preserves the best of central indiana's natural areas, protecting plants and animals, so hoosiers can experience the wonder of the state's natural heritage.
The mission of the racine zoological society is to foster an enlightening and affordable wildlife experience that improves the bond between people and nature. the society will provide for the recreation and education of the people, the…
The cleveland botanical garden connects people with the wonder, beauty, and value of trees and plants, to inspire action for healthy communities.
Museum has a mission to create opportunties for everyone to experience art that broadens understanding of the past, fosters community connections to the present, and creates diverse possbilities for the future.
Cincinnati Public Radio is the trusted, independent source of journalism, music and culture empowering a vibrant, engaged and informed community.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Richmond Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the most unlike its peers is Communities in Schools of Va. 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 42 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
46 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. 46 of the 89 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 THE VALENTINE MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds LEWIS GINTER BOTANICAL GARDEN INC ↗
- Who funds MAYMONT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CAMPING AND EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WOMEN HELPING WOMEN ↗
- Who funds THE RICHMOND BALLET ↗
- Who funds CINCINNATI PRESERVATION ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds CINCINNATI MUSEUM CENTER ↗
- Who funds Prospect House Inc ↗
- Who funds CINCINNATI NATURE CENTER ↗
- Who funds CINCINNATI SHAKESPEARE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds ST CHRISTOPHER'S SCHOOL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CIVIC GARDEN CENTER OF GREATER CINCINNATI ↗
- Who funds FEED MORE INC ↗
- Who funds Cincinnati Parks Foundation ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS OF RICHMOND INC ↗
- Who funds THE RICHMOND SYMPHONY ↗
- Who funds CAPITAL TREES ↗
- Who funds THE HILLSIDE TRUST ↗
- Who funds COVINGTON LADIES HOME INC ↗
- Who funds League for Animal Welfare ↗
- Who funds LA SOUPE INC ↗
- Who funds RICHMOND SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ↗
- Who funds ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF CINCINNATI ↗
- Who funds THE SEVEN HILLS SCHOOL ↗
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: The Greater Cincinnati Foundation · Carol Ann and Ralph V Haile Jr Foundation · Johnson Charitable Gift Fund · John a Schroth Family Char Tr · William P Anderson Foundation Central Trust · The Community Foundation Inc · Ge Aerospace Foundation · Ruth J & Robert a Conway Foundation Inc · Louise Taft Semple Foundation · Elsa M Heisel Sule Charitable Trust 2005 · The Thomas J Emery Memorial · Robins 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 Ridgeway 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.
- Arts for Learning Connecticut — 14% of income from government
- Chatham Historical Society Inc — 0% 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.