· Private foundation
Sam F Weller Family Foundation
Its FY2023 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
Read this first · the figures below need context
90% of Sam F Weller Family Foundation’s FY2023 grant dollars went to South Dakota Community Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2023 names 9 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2022, the last year Sam F Weller Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 8 organizations, $155k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2022
- Under $10k7 grants · $19k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $136k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ST MARY'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH | $35,000 |
| MITCHELL SCHOOL DISTRICT | $27,500 |
| ABBOTT HOUSE | $25,000 |
| DAKOTA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY | $18,000 |
| MITCHELL KIWANIS CLUB | $15,000 |
| MITCHELL PICKLEBALL ASSOCIATION | $15,000 |
| MITCHELL PREHISTORIC INDIAN VILLAGE | $5,000 |
| JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT | $4,000 |
| LOVE FEAST OF MITCHELL | $3,000 |
| MITCHELL AREA COMMUNITY THEATRE | $2,500 |
| MITCHELL AREA GARDEN CLUB | $2,000 |
| MITCHELL LIONS FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
| AVERA QUEEN OF PEACE | $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 (FY18–23, $245k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +48% since the first grant, against +33% for the ones you funded once.
20 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2022, 11 since wound down; 14 grantees were first funded in FY2022 (too recent to call). Read against FY2022, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2023, 63% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $212k 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
- AHABBOTT HOUSE INC5× · 2018–2023 · $209k · revenue +111%
- DWDAKOTA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY4× · 2019–2022 · $68k · revenue +25%
- MAMitchell Aquatic Club4× · 2018–2021 · $50k · revenue +48%
Funded once
- HWHELPING WITH HORSEPOWERone grant, 2020 · $10k
- SOSPECIAL OLYMPICS SOUTH DAKOTA INCgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $10k · revenue +33%
- JPJOHN PAUL II SCHOOLone grant, 2019 · $8k
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.
The organization operates a pre-k through high school educational program accredited by the state of south dakota.
Education, information, and promotion of the appreciation of the sport of rodeo and other equine and livestock activities in the community and surrounding areas of mitchell, south dakota.
Promote economic development in mitchell county
To promote in the economic development of local mitchell county communities
Six bed group home that maintained full occupancy for developmentally challenged adults. took residents on excursions and dining experiences to acclimate them to every day inclusion in society.
Chamber of commerce
Mitchell county safeplace is a non-profit organization working for the elimination of domestic violence, rape, sexual assault, stalking, elder abuse, and promoting economic and social empowerment for all
Provide the community with a shooting range and sporting activities
To provide day services to individuals with developmental disabilities as well as education to families and communities of mitchell and baker counties.
To allow youth the opportunity to play baseball.
Assist with fundraising efforts of mitchell area safehouse including investments and asset management.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mitchell Area Safehouse Inc and the most unlike its peers is Habitat for Humanity International Inc. 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 32 years old; the field is 29. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 22% of your grantees by number, and just 2% 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.
18 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. 18 of the 46 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 SOUTH DAKOTA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ABBOTT HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds DAKOTA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds MITCHELL AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds MITCHELL BASEBALL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Mitchell Aquatic Club ↗
- Who funds MITCHELL AREA HOUSING INC ↗
- Who funds MITCHELL PREHISTORIC INDIAN VILLAGE ↗
- Who funds LIFEQUEST INC ↗
- Who funds MITCHELL MUSIC BOOSTERS INC ↗
- Who funds MITCHELL PICKLEBALL ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds MITCHELL AREA SAFEHOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL OLYMPICS SOUTH DAKOTA INC ↗
- Who funds MITCHELL AREA DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds MITCHELL TENNIS ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds MITCHELL UNITED WAY ↗
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: South Dakota Community Foundation · Mitchell Area Charitable Foundation · Avera Health · First Interstate BancSystem Foundation Inc · Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation Inc · Larson Foundation · Sanford Group Return · Midcontinent Foundation · The US Charitable Gift Trust · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Sam F Weller Family 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.
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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Sam F Weller Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Sam F Weller Family Foundation through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.