· Private foundation
Ruehlow Family Foundation Inc
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 $10k5 grants · $25k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $120k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $150k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MILWAUKEE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING | $100,000 |
| HOPE STREET MINISTRY | $50,000 |
| PURE FREEDOM MINISTRIES | $32,500 |
| YOUNG LIFE | $17,500 |
| UNICEF | $10,000 |
| MAKE A WISH FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| LAKE COUNTRY CARING | $10,000 |
| SECOND HARVEST OF SILICON VALLEY | $10,000 |
| HUMANE ANIMAL WELFARE SOCIETY | $10,000 |
| MILWAUKEE RESCUE MISSION | $10,000 |
| NORTH LAKE EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | $5,000 |
| FAMILY HOUSE | $5,000 |
| BLOOD CANCER UNITED | $5,000 |
| LIFE MOVES | $5,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY20–25, $106k) land where the poverty rate runs at 6%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 5% of those 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +33% since the first grant, against +3% for the ones you funded once.
36 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2025, 20 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
MILWAUKEE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING9× · 2017–2025 · $900k · revenue +59%
HOPE STREET MINISTRY INC8× · 2017–2025 · $195k · revenue +82%- AHAmerican Heart Association Inc7× · 2017–2023 · $160k · revenue +33%
Funded once
- SPSAMARITAN'S PURSEone grant, 2024 · $50k · revenue 0%
- JYJuntos y Unidos por Puerto Rico Incone grant, 2017 · $25k
- NBNORTH BAY FIRE RELIEFone grant, 2017 · $25k
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.
Second harvest heartland's mission is to end hunger together. in partnership with more than 1,000 food shelves and hunger-relief programs in minnesota and western wisconsin, we provided 145 million meals to neighbors last year.
We champion the health needs of children and families. we are committed to improving children's health by providing the highest-quality, family centered care, advanced through research and education.
The mission of mercy health system corporation (mhsc) is "exceptional health care services with a passion for making lives better." the foundation of this mission is based on a vision of quality: excellence in patient care; service:…
To conduct and support programs and activities aimed at solving some of the world's greatest public health challenges, with a specific focus on enabling health workers to have the greatest possible impact on the health of the people they…
Fred hutch cancer center ("fred hutch") unites innovative research and compassionate care to prevent and eliminate cancer and infectious disease. continued on schedule o
Community care health plan's mission is to develop and demonstrate innovative, flexible, community-based approaches to care for at-risk adults, in order to optimize their quality of life and optimize the allocation of community resources.
University of minnesota physicians serves as the integrated group practice for the university of minnesota medical school full-time faculty to provide the highest quality healthcare to patients and their families.university of minnesota…
To advance the health of our communities through excellence and discovery, inspiring each person to live their unique, best life.
Second harvest foodbank exists to end hunger in southwestern wisconsin.
(msh) saves lives and improves the health of the world's poorest (see schedule o) and most vulnerable people by closing the gap between knowledge and action in public health.
Our mission at the university of chicago medicine is to provide superior health care through rigorous research, innovative education, and comprehensive care and healing. in partnership with our colleagues, we pursue life-changing…
The mission of the Wisconsin Humane Society is to make a difference for animals and the people who love them.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Children's Health Defense and the most unlike its peers is North Lake Education Foundation Incorporated. 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 30 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.
35 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. 35 of the 60 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 MILWAUKEE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING ↗
- Who funds HOPE STREET MINISTRY INC ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds LAKE AREA FREE CLINIC INC ↗
- Who funds PROHEALTH CARE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG LIFE ↗
- Who funds LAKE COUNTRY CARING INC ↗
- Who funds North Lake Education Foundation Incorporated ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAN'S PURSE ↗
- Who funds OPERATION DREAM INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST OF SILICON VALLEY ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF THE PENINSULA ↗
- Who funds HUMANE ANIMAL WELFARE SOCIETY OF WAUKESHA COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds LIFEMOVES ↗
- Who funds ZACHARIAH'S ACRES INC ↗
- Who funds Juntos y Unidos por Puerto Rico Inc ↗
- Who funds BLOOD CANCER UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds FAYE GEHL CONSERVATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FAMILY HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds THE STARTING POINT PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds HUNGER TASK FORCE INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA 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: Baird Foundation Inc · Herbert H Kohl Charities Inc · Greater Milwaukee Foundation Inc · Oconomowoc Area Foundation Inc · Waukesha County Community Foundation · Bradley Impact Fund Inc · Ge Aerospace Foundation · STACKNER FAMILY FOUNDATION INC co KRISTIN A OCCHETTI · Green Bay Packers Foundation · Arthur C Kootz Foundation · Dalum Family Foundation · Jean & Thomas Harbeck Family 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 Ruehlow Family Foundation Inc 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.