· Public charity
Rivers of Steel Heritage Corporation
RIVERS OF STEEL HERITAGE CORPORATION conserves, interprets, develops, and promotes historical, cultural and recreational resources throughout western pennsylvania, including the eight counties that comprise the rivers of steel national heritage area.
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 2 grants below total $54,076 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $107,419 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $53,343 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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NORWIN ELKS LODGE 2313 | $34,815 |
| KELLY STRAYHORN THEATRE | $19,261 |
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 (FY22–22, $12k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 12% of Rivers of Steel Heritage Corporation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 98% of the giving stays in PA; read by stated purpose it is 81% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
7 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down; 1 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, 36% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $35k 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
- TBTHE BATTLE OF HOMESTEAD FOUNDATION3× · 2017–2020 · $45k · revenue -61%
- IGIndividual grant recipient2× · 2017–2018 · $34k
- PTPENNSYLVANIA TROLLEY MUSEUM INC3× · 2020–2024 · $32k · revenue -23%
Funded once
- LELOCAL EXCHANGEone grant, 2024 · $60k
- WCWASHINGTON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY INCone grant, 2024 · $23k · revenue 0%
- COCENTER OF LIFEone grant, 2022 · $12k · revenue +11%
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.
Phipps' mission is to inspire and educate all with the beauty and importance of plants, to advance sustainability and promote human and environmental well-being through action and research, and to celebrate its historic glasshouse.
The historical society of western pennsylvania is an educational institution that engages and inspires a large and inclusive audience with links to the past, understanding in the present, and guidance for the future by preserving regional…
See schedule oper the bylaws of the delaware & lehigh national heritage corridor(which were updated by the merged board of the national canal musuem and the d&l), our mission is to work with government entities, non-profit organizations…
Rivers of steel heritage corporation conserves, interprets, develops, and promotes historical, cultural and recreational resources throughout western pennsylvania, including the eight counties that comprise the rivers of steel national…
To collect, preserve & publish the history & historical data relative to lehigh county for the education of the general public
The mission of the everhart museum of natural history, science, and art is to foster knowledge and enjoyment of natural history, science, art, and culture through a variety of exhibitions, educational programs, and events for people of all…
To preserve and expand the resources of art and science as agents of personal growth and social advancement in pittsburgh and beyond.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Pennsylvania Trolley Museum Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Battle of Homestead Foundation. 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 29 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) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 16% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 7% 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.
19 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. 19 of the 25 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 BATTLE OF HOMESTEAD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BENEVOLENT AND PROTECTIVE ORDER OF ELKS LODGE #2313 ↗
- Who funds PENNSYLVANIA TROLLEY MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds WESTMORELAND MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY THEATER PROJECT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds THE SOCIETY TO PRESERVE THE MILLVALE MURALS OF MAXO VANKA ↗
- Who funds CENTER OF LIFE ↗
- Who funds THE PERENNIAL PROJECT ↗
- Who funds CHATHAM UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds VENTURE OUTDOORS INC ↗
- Who funds JOSH GIBSON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BREW HOUSE ARTS ↗
- Who funds WESTMORELAND FAYETTE HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds HARMONIE ASSOCIATES ↗
- Who funds THE DRAGON'S DEN ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE RIVERFRONT INC ↗
- Who funds GREAT ALLEGHENY PASSAGE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds Pittsburgh Botanic Garden ↗
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 Pittsburgh Foundation · The Grable Foundation · Richard King Mellon Foundation · Hillman Family Foundations · The Heinz Endowments · Eqt Foundation · Program to Aid Citizen Enterprise Inc · The Jack Buncher Foundation · Arts Equity & Education Fund · McCune Foundation Pnc Bank Na · Nisource Charitable Foundation · The Burke 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 Rivers of Steel Heritage Corporation 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.