· Private foundation
Shafer Family Charitable Trust
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 FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHILDREN'S HOME OF EASTON | $8,000 |
| ALBRIGHTSVILLE VOLUNTEER FIRE CO | $7,000 |
| EPWORTH UNITED METHODIST CHURCH | $6,000 |
| THE STATE THEATRE | $5,000 |
| MASONIC CHARITIES FUND | $5,000 |
| VISITING NURSE ASSOC OF BETHLEHEM | $5,000 |
| MORAVIAN VILLAGE OF BETHLEHEM | $5,000 |
| ST JOHN'S LUTHERAN CHURCH | $5,000 |
| MASONIC CHARITIES FUND | $5,000 |
| LEHIGH VALLEY ZOO | $4,000 |
| ST LUKE'S SCHOOL OF NURSING | $4,000 |
| MEALS ON WHEELS | $4,000 |
| PEDIATRIC INTENSIVE CARE UNIT | $3,000 |
| FLINT HILL FARM EDUCATIONAL CENTER | $3,000 |
| ARTSQUEST | $2,500 |
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 (FY20–25, $22k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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 +82% since the first grant, against +37% for the ones you funded once.
29 repeat relationships — 18 still active in FY2025, 11 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, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- TCTHE CHILDREN'S HOME OF EASTON INC6× · 2020–2025 · $43k · revenue +83%
- GLGRAND LODGE OF PENNSYLVANIA CHARITY FOUNDATION4× · 2022–2025 · $40k · revenue +95%
- AVALBRIGHTSVILLE VOLUNTEER FIRE COMPANY6× · 2020–2025 · $33k · revenue +259%
Funded once
- MHMASONIC HOMESone grant, 2021 · $10k
- MVMASONIC VILLAGES OF THEone grant, 2020 · $8k
- BABETHLEHEM AREA PUBLIC LIBRARYone grant, 2020 · $3k · revenue +16%
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.
Provide emergency medical services.
Public lending library
Operation of a fire company that provides residents of bethlehem township and surrounding municipalities with fire suppression, rescue, and emergency medical services.
We heal, comfort and care for the people of our community by providing advanced and compassionate health care of superior quality and value supported by education and clinical research.
The council is a key component of the emergency medical services system in central pennsylvania, serving as a vital link between local ems agencies and the pennsylvania department of health. as a independent non-profit corporation and the…
The mission of the Sewickley Public Library is to provide lifelong learning oppurtunities to the children and adults of the greater Quaker Valley Community.
Public lending library
We heal, comfort, and care for the people of our community by providing advanced and compassionate health care of superior quality and value supported by education and clinical research.
Jewish family service of the lehigh valley, guided by jewish values, helps individuals and families to live healthier, more stable lives by providing social services, professional counseling, education, and community programs. our vision…
Valley day school is a private, non-profit, state-funded, special education school licensed by the pennsylvania department of education for students who are experiencing learning and/or adjustment difficulties.
See schedule oas a critical access hospital and member of the uhs healthcare system, delaware valley hospital's mission is to provide the community with the high quality, patient-centered services that are most often needed; thereby…
The mission of penn highlands mon valley is to enhance the health of the residents of the mid-monongahela valley area by providing outstanding healthcare services.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Artsquest and the most unlike its peers is Project of Easton 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 39 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
20 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. 20 of the 38 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 CHILDREN'S HOME OF EASTON INC ↗
- Who funds GRAND LODGE OF PENNSYLVANIA CHARITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ALBRIGHTSVILLE VOLUNTEER FIRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds MORAVIAN VILLAGE OF BETHLEHEM ↗
- Who funds STATE THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds ARTSQUEST ↗
- Who funds EQUI-LIBRIUM INC ↗
- Who funds Flint Hill Farm Educational Center Inc ↗
- Who funds LEHIGH VALLEY ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds STATE THEATRE CENTER FOR THE ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds ST LUKE'S HOSPITAL OF BETHLEHEM PA ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS OF THE GREATER LEHIGH VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds SIGHTS FOR HOPE ↗
- Who funds PROJECT OF EASTON INC ↗
- Who funds PENNSYLVANIA SINFONIA ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds BETHLEHEM AREA PUBLIC LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL RECREATION SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds Upper Nazareth Fire Department Inc ↗
- Who funds SHRINERS HOSPITALS FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds SOUTHSIDE FILM INSTITUTE ↗
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: Lehigh Valley Community Foundation · United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley · Air Products Foundation · Ppl Foundation · John a and Margaret Post Foundation · Essa Bank & Trust Foundation · Martin Guitar Charitable Foundation · Frederick H Bedford Jr & Margaret S Bedford Charitable Foundation · Two Rivers Health & Wellness Foundation · Ross J Born and Wendy G Born Charitable Trust · Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust · Waldman Family Charitable Trust
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 Shafer Family Charitable Trust 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.
- Shriners Hospitals for Children — 0% of income from government
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.