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Plinth

· Private foundation

Ronald D Deffenbaugh Foundation

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.

$2.5M
Granted FY2021
54
Grants FY2021
3
States reached
$600k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your edgeRead
04Your fieldRead
01What you fund
0196% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.

Health$2.3MEducation$1.5MReligion$1.0MHuman Services$896kEmployment$677kPhilanthropy$509kArts & Culture$283kHousing & Shelter$240kOther$0
02FY2021 · 54 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2021

  • Under $10k5 grants · $28k
  • $10k–50k30 grants · $525k
  • $50k–250k18 grants · $1.4M
  • $250k+1 grant · $600k
$25,000
Median grant
3
States reached
$96M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Down Syndrome Innovations$600,000
The Signatry$210,000
Police Athletic Leaque of Kansas City KS$125,000
Welcome House Inc$100,000
Carry the Cross Ministries$90,000
CATHOLIC CHARITIES FOUNDATION$85,000
GoodLife Innovations Inc$75,000
Barstow School$75,000
The Light House Inc$70,000
Drumm Center for Children (Drumm Farm)$65,000
Job One Inc$60,400
Veterans Community Project$50,000
Kansas University Endowment Association$50,000
SOAR Special Needs$50,000
Healing House Inc$50,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY18–21, $512k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 49% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

area typical 8%Family Conservancy: $50k → 16%Family Conservancy: $25k → 16%Family Conservancy: $25k → 16%KC Healthy Kids: $10k → 16%KC Healthy Kids: $10k → 16%Santa Fe Waystation Inc: $5k → 5%GoodLife Innovations Inc: $75k → 5%GoodLife Innovations Inc: $65k → 5%GoodLife Innovations Inc: $50k → 5%Start at Zero: $15k → 15%Start at Zero: $10k → 15%SOAR Special Needs: $50k → 5%Start at Zero: $5k → 15%Lorraines House: $10k → 5%Lorraines House: $5k → 5%FosterAdopt Connect: $10k → 15%Healing House Inc: $50k → 15%Healing House Inc: $42k → 15%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

74%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$6.1M · 51 repeat orgs$2.2M to everyone else

51 repeat relationships — 38 still active in FY2021, 13 since wound down; 16 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

51
25

Total granted

$6.1M
$1.7M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+37%
+57%

Still filing today

80%
68%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2021, 81% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $475k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21
HealthEducationHuman ServicesArts & CultureHousing & ShelterReligionOther

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

  • CH
    Craig Hospital Foundation
    3× · 2017–2019 · $300k · revenue +111%
  • CT
    CARRY THE CROSS MINISTRIES
    4× · 2018–2021 · $270k · revenue +70% · 36% of their budget
  • J
    JOBONE
    4× · 2018–2021 · $262k · revenue +17%

Funded once

  • JC
    JOHNSON COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE
    one grant, 2019 · $1.0M
  • CO
    CITY OF SHAWNEE
    one grant, 2017 · $100k
  • FC
    FIRST CALL ALCOHOLDRUG PREVENTION RECOVERYgraduated
    one grant, 2018 · $100k · revenue +59%

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

04Your field

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.

1
Kansas City Community Land Trust

Acquire and develop real estate to provide safe, decent, and affordable housing to low-income homeowners while working to ensure a culturally, ethnically, and economically diverse and stable community where generations can thrive in place.

Housing & Shelter
2
Kansas Healthcare Collaborative Inc

Engaging and aligning providers and stakeholders to establish Kansas as a role model for health care quality and a top performer in health care outcomes.

Health
3
Kc Common Good Inc

Our mission is to create an environment where all citizens can live safely and have access to real opportunities.

Employment
4
Freedom House Ministries

House of Hope Kansas City is unique, because we work with teens and their parents to find solutions and ultimately, restoration of healthy family relationships. We serve families in crisis with our program for residents to experience the…

Education
5
Cultivate Kansas City Inc

Grow food, farms and community in support of a sustainable, healthy and local food system.

Food & Nutrition
6
Kanza Mental Health and Guidance Center Inc

Offer hope to build a better tomorrow through mental health services.

Health
7
Chain of Hope Kc

Outreach to help animals suffering in the urban core of kansas city.

Animals
8
Kansas Legal Services Inc

Kansas legal services is devoted to helping low income kansans meet their basic needs through the provision of important legal and mediation services.

—
9
Catholic Charities of Kansas City - St Joseph Inc

Helping people move to a better life through hope-filled care, services, and advocacy; calling all those of goodwill to join us

Human Services
10
Bike Share Kc

Bike share kc provides the greater kansas city area with a bike share system designed for transportation, recreation, and exercise.

Human Services
11
Kansas City Christian School Association

To bring glory to god by providing children with an excellent christ- centered education rooted in the word of god.

—
12
North Central Kansas Housing Opportunities Inc
Community Improvement

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Fosteradopt Connect Inc and the most unlike its peers is War Horses for Veterans 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.

← shrinkinggrowing →↓ leaning in → pulling backsteadyCrisis Support & Shelter Se…Faith-Based Community Outre…Kansas City Community Devel…Higher Education Support Fo…Child & Family Crisis Servi…Faith-Based International A…Youth Sports & Recreation P…Charter and Alternative Sch…K-12 Educational Equity Pro…Performing Arts Organizatio…Senior Residential CareReproductive Health Services
the sector your giving your giving is ahead of the sector the sector’s ahead of you· dot size = how much the theme matters to each side
Ordered by the change in your giving — leaning in on top, pulling back at the bottom. The bar between the two dots is how out of step you are with the sector. Hover any row for detail.

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 30 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number20%0%<5yr13%13%5–10yr16%23%10–20yr16%20%20–35yr11%29%35–55yr25%16%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value20%0%<5yr13%16%5–10yr16%16%10–20yr16%18%20–35yr11%37%35–55yr25%13%55yr+

The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
0.0%0/76
the rest of the field
13%
1,173/9,033

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.

04the grantee network

72 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. 72 of the 93 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.

2
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
24
Early backer (in before they grew)
71/72
Grantees still filing
57/72
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

JOHNSON COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE — $1,000,000 · OtherJOHNSON COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGEDOWN SYNDROME INNOVATIONS — $750,000 · OtherDOWN SYNDROME INNOVATIONSCATHOLIC CHARITIES FOUNDATION — $409,000 · OtherCATHOLIC CHARITIES FOUNDATIONJOBONE — $261,715 · OtherJOBONEDrumm Center for Children (Drumm Farm) — $245,400 · OtherSherwood Autism Center — $185,000 · Other+43 more — $1,769,700 · Other+43 moreThe Signatry Corporation Inc — $585,000 · ReligionThe Signatry Cor…CARRY THE CROSS MINISTRIES — $270,000 · ReligionCARRY THE CROSS …PASTORS 411 FOUNDATION — $213,000 · ReligionPASTORS 411 FOUN…NOURISHKC — $145,000 · ReligionNOURISHKCCraig Hospital Foundation — $300,000 · HealthCraig Hospit…THE LIGHT HOUSE INC — $214,000 · HealthTHE LIGHT HO…Welcome House Inc — $175,000 · HealthWelcome Hous…SHATTERPROOF A NONPROFIT CORPORATION — $50,000 · HealthHOPE FAMILY CARE CENTER LLC — $50,000 · HealthINCLUSION CONNECTIONS INC — $47,000 · HealthIN THE NAME OF GRACE — $40,000 · Health+4 more — $65,000 · Health+4 moreGREAT JOBS KC INC — $125,000 · EducationACADEMY FOR INTEGRATED ARTS — $100,000 · EducationGORDON PARKS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL — $65,000 · EducationWilliam Jewell College — $55,000 · EducationThe Kansas University Endowment Association — $50,000 · EducationDonnelly College — $45,000 · EducationOPERATION BREAKTHROUGH INC — $40,000 · EducationKANSAS CITY ART INSTITUTE — $30,000 · EducationKANSAS CITY AUTISM TRAINING CENTER INC — $20,000 · Education+1 more — $10,000 · EducationGOODLIFE INNOVATIONS INC — $190,000 · Human ServicesTHE FAMILY CONSERVANCY — $100,000 · Human ServicesHEALING HOUSE INC — $91,600 · Human ServicesSOAR SPECIAL NEEDS — $50,000 · Human ServicesLORRAINE'S HOUSE — $35,000 · Human ServicesSTART AT ZERO INC — $30,000 · Human ServicesKC Healthy Kids — $20,000 · Human Services+2 more — $15,000 · Human ServicesDeveloping Potential Inc — $175,000 · EmploymentWOMENS EMPLOYMENT NETWORK — $105,000 · EmploymentKAUFFMAN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS — $80,000 · Arts & CultureARTS & RECREATION FOUNDATION OF OVERLAND — $50,000 · Arts & CultureMUSEUM OF PRAIRIEFIRE FOUNDATION — $40,000 · Arts & CultureSTARLIGHT THEATRE ASSOCIATION OF KANSAS CITY INC — $35,000 · Arts & CultureENGLEWOOD ARTS — $20,000 · Arts & CultureMESNER PUPPET THEATER — $20,000 · Arts & CultureKANSAS CITY SYMPHONY — $15,000 · Arts & CultureCOMMUNITY CAPITAL FUND — $10,000 · Arts & Culture
Other$4,620,815Religion$1,213,000Health$941,000Education$540,000Human Services$531,600Employment$280,000Arts & Culture$270,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetDOWN SYNDROME INNOVATIONS — $750,000 over 2y, 5.8% of budgetCraig Hospital Foundation — $300,000 over 3y, 1.5% of budgetCARRY THE CROSS MINISTRIES — $270,000 over 4y, 36% of budgetJOBONE — $261,715 over 4y, 2.2% of budgetTHE LIGHT HOUSE INC — $214,000 over 4y, 7.0% of budgetGOODLIFE INNOVATIONS INC — $190,000 over 3y, 0.3% of budgetWelcome House Inc — $175,000 over 3y, 3.6% of budgetDeveloping Potential Inc — $175,000 over 3y, 2.3% of budgetNOURISHKC — $145,000 over 3y, 3.2% of budgetGREAT JOBS KC INC — $125,000 over 4y, 0.4% of budgetVETERANS COMMUNITY PROJECT — $120,000 over 3y, 0.9% of budgetWOMENS EMPLOYMENT NETWORK — $105,000 over 5y, 2.1% of budgetACADEMY FOR INTEGRATED ARTS — $100,000 over 3y, 1.9% of budgetGreater Kansas City Community Foundation — $100,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE GLOBAL ORPHAN PROJECT INC — $100,000 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetFIRST CALL ALCOHOLDRUG PREVENTION RECOVERY — $100,000 over 1y, 5.4% of budgetTHE FAMILY CONSERVANCY — $100,000 over 3y, 0.4% of budgetHEALING HOUSE INC — $91,600 over 2y, 1.5% of budgetYOUTHFRONT INC — $90,000 over 3y, 1.1% of budgetMETROPOLITAN LUTHERAN MINISTRY — $80,000 over 1y, 1.7% of budgetKAUFFMAN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS — $80,000 over 3y, 0.2% of budgetTHE BARSTOW SCHOOL — $75,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetGORDON PARKS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL — $65,000 over 4y, 0.7% of budgetWilliam Jewell College — $55,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetSHATTERPROOF A NONPROFIT CORPORATION — $50,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetHOPE FAMILY CARE CENTER LLC — $50,000 over 1y, 2.8% of budgetSOAR SPECIAL NEEDS — $50,000 over 1y, 11% of budgetARTS & RECREATION FOUNDATION OF OVERLAND — $50,000 over 1y, 2.4% of budgetWildwood Outdoor Education Center — $50,000 over 2y, 2.7% of budgetCOMMUNITY LIVING OPPORTUNITIES INC — $50,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetThe Kansas University Endowment Association — $50,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetINCLUSION CONNECTIONS INC — $47,000 over 3y, 3.2% of budgetDonnelly College — $45,000 over 4y, 0.3% of budgetSPECIAL OLYMPICS KANSAS INC — $40,000 over 3y, 0.8% of budgetMUSEUM OF PRAIRIEFIRE FOUNDATION — $40,000 over 3y, 2.0% of budgetOPERATION BREAKTHROUGH INC — $40,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetMEDICAL MISSIONS FOUNDATION — $40,000 over 3y, 7.0% of budgetLORRAINE'S HOUSE — $35,000 over 3y, 9.5% of budgetSTARLIGHT THEATRE ASSOCIATION OF KANSAS CITY INC — $35,000 over 2y, 0.8% of budgetKANSAS CITY ART INSTITUTE — $30,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetSTART AT ZERO INC — $30,000 over 3y, 2.3% of budgetSeton Center Inc — $30,000 over 3y, 0.4% of budgetCHRISTMAS IN OCTOBER — $25,000 over 3y, 3.3% of budgetLITERACY KANSAS CITY — $25,000 over 1y, 1.5% of budgetJUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF MIDDLE AMERICA INC — $25,000 over 1y, 1.1% of budgetGILDA'S CLUB KANSAS CITY — $25,000 over 3y, 2.3% of budgetWAR HORSES FOR VETERANS INC — $25,000 over 1y, 2.7% of budgetThe Willow Domestic Violence Center Inc — $25,000 over 1y, 1.3% of budget
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.

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.

Greater Kansas City C…The Sunderland Founda…The H & R Block Found…United Way of Greater…The Sherman Family Fo…Health Forward Founda…Ewing Marion Kauffman…The Kansas City Royal…Oppenstein Brothers F…John J Sullivan Jr Fo…R a Long Foundation 6…Constance M Cooper Ch…
Greater Kansas City Community FoundationMO77.9× affinity48 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Greater Kansas City Community Foundation · The Sunderland Foundation · The H & R Block Foundation · United Way of Greater Kansas City Inc · The Sherman Family Foundation · Health Forward Foundation · Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation · The Kansas City Royals Foundation · Oppenstein Brothers Foundation · John J Sullivan Jr Foundation John Houlehan & Mark Henke-Trustees · R a Long Foundation 600 Plaza West Bldg · Constance M Cooper Charitable 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 Ronald D Deffenbaugh 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.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%2%8%17%30%your share of their income ↑0%13%25%38%50%share of the org’s income from government →median 2%
  • Shatterproof a Nonprofit Corporation — 2% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
29report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–50%
typical government reliance, FY20–25

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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 93 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2021, released 2021. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2024) is on record and reports $3.1M of grant expense with no grantee named in the published copy. A private foundation itemizes every grant it makes, so a return carrying none has filed its list as an attachment that the public copy does not include. The figures above are therefore from FY2021, the most recent year this funder’s grantee list reached the public record.

Source object · view filing

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 camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home
State money flows
the interactive map of money crossing state lines