How much does Searles Family Foundation give?

Searles Family Foundation reported 14 grants totaling $117,000 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 12 and 17 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Searles Family Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (48%), Animals (16%), Education (9%).

Who are Searles Family Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: New Hampshire Boat Museum ($119k), Clark Lake Spirit Foundation Inc ($91k), Loon Preservation Committee ($45k).

Does Searles Family Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 15% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Searles Family Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Searles Family Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include George Isaac Foundation, The O-I Charities Foundation, Toledo Community Foundation Inc.

Where is Searles Family Foundation based?

Searles Family Foundation is based in MI.

Searles Family Foundation

Searles Family Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Searles Family 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.

$117k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$60k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Arts & Culture$256kAnimals$85kEducation$47kHealth$35kEnvironment$26kYouth Development$26kPhilanthropy$20kInternational$19kOther$0

02FY2025 · 14 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k10 grants · $23k
$10k–50k3 grants · $34k
$50k–250k1 grant · $60k

$4,000

Median grant

States reached

$986k

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
CLARK LAKE SPIRITS FOUNDATION	$60,000
FREDERIK MEIJER GARDENS & SCULPTURE FOUNDATION	$14,000
NEW HAMPSHIRE BOAT MUSEUM	$10,000
LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE ASSOCIATION	$10,000
HYDE SCHOOLS	$5,000
LOON PRESERVATION COMMITTEE	$5,000
ABACO STRONG	$4,000
BARN SANCTUARY	$2,000
THE HOME FOR LITTLE WANDERERS INC	$2,000
TOLEDO SYMPHONY	$1,000
TOLEDO MUSEUM OF ART	$1,000
LIBRARY LEGACY FOUNDATION	$1,000
TOLEDO ZOO	$1,000
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE	$1,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $4k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 76% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

92%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$478k · 20 repeat orgs$42k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +34% since the first grant, against +5% for those funded once.

20 repeat relationships: 14 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$478k

$42k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+34%

+5%

Still filing today

70%

43%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

AnimalsArts & CultureEnvironmentHuman ServicesEducationYouth DevelopmentOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

CL
CLARK LAKE SPIRIT FOUNDATION INC
5× · 2019–2025 · $91k · revenue +473% · 31% of their budget
LP
Loon Preservation Committee
9× · 2017–2025 · $45k · revenue +1%
LW
Lake Winnipesaukee Association
4× · 2022–2025 · $25k · revenue +254%

Funded once

CT
CHRIST THE KING CATHOLIC PARISH
one grant, 2024 · $8k
SR
ST ROBERT OF NEWMINSTER PARISH
one grant, 2024 · $8k
FF
Friends For Tomorrow Inc
one grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue -10%

How this is measured

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

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Nantucket Conservation Foundation Inc

The nantucket conservation foundation owns, protects, and stewards over 9,000 acres of land and coastal shoreline, conserves nantucket's rare and significant natural resources, and engages in impactful ecological research to inform…

Environment

Naples Zoo Inc

Naples zoo is accredited by the american zoo & aquarium association (aza) and has numerous animal exhibits placed on its 45-acre site. (continued on schedule o)each exhibit is unique and designed to simulate typical conditions for the…

Animals

Leelanau Conservancy

To conserve the land, water and scenic character of leelanau county, and to provide educational programs to develop an understanding and appreciation of leelanau county's natural heritage.

Environment

Wilton Land Conservation Trust

Protecting, enhancing and conserving open spaces encompassing meadows, woodlands, wetlands, and waterways in the town of wilton ct.

Environment

Zoological Society of Buffalo Inc

Building community; creating connections; saving wildlife through a collaboration for change: the buffalo zoo will be a center of conservation excellence, providing leadership to secure a future where wildlife thrives. we embody our…

Animals

Alaska Whale Foundation

Alaska Whale Foundation is dedicated to marine mammal conservation through research monitoring and education.

Environment

Lowell Observatory Foundation

To sustain and enhance lowell observatory's mission of research and education by generating perpetual financial support.

Science & Tech

Land Conservancy of West Michigan

Our mission is conserving West Michigans ecologically critical land. We protect land by creating public nature preserves, providing support to communities and local governments in creating natural areas, and helping private landowners…

Environment

Cincinnati Zoo Foundation Inc

Perform fundraising functions, provide financial support, carryout the purpose and otherwise operating for the benefit of the zoological society of cincinnati.

Animals

Akron Zoological Park

We connect your life to wildlife while inspiring lifelong learning and conservation action.

Animals

Longneck Manor Conservation Foundation

To create memorable guest experiences which promote actions to help save species, habitats, and the communities who share those same landscapes

Animals

Turtle Conservancy

The turtle conservancy is dedicated to protecting threatened turtles and tortoises and their habitats worldwide, and to promoting their appreciation by people.

Animals

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Boys & Girls Clubs of Toledo and the Toledo Newsboys Association; the most unlike its peers is Abaco Strong Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

23 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 23 of the 36 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

21/23

Grantees still filing

14/23

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Arts & Culture$218,600Other$147,350Environment$69,000Animals$38,750Youth Development$23,500Philanthropy$20,000International$19,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

George Isaac FoundationOH13.6× affinity4 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: George Isaac Foundation · The O-I Charities Foundation · Toledo Community Foundation Inc · Ibm International Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · American Endowment Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Renaissance Charitable Foundation Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Searles Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Searles Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

5report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Searles Family Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Searles 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.

Play a game based on Searles Family’s filings →

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 endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home