· Private foundation
Shelly Family Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k10 grants · $50k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $55k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY | $15,000 |
| OHIO UNIVERSITY | $10,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF FINDLAY | $10,000 |
| DENNISON UNIVERSITY | $10,000 |
| MUSKINGUM COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| COLUMBUS STATE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $5,338 |
| HEIDELBERG UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
| IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
| COLUMBUS STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $5,000 |
| STANFORD UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
| THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY - NEWARK | $5,000 |
| OHIO DOMINICAN UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY | $5,000 |
| MUSKINGUM UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
| FRANKLIN UNIVERSITY | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 92% of your 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.
25 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 16 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 72% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $25k went to new ones.
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
- TBTHE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF WITTENBERG COLLEGE4× · 2020–2023 · $20k · revenue +4%
- OUOtterbein University2× · 2018–2019 · $15k · revenue +2%
- MUMUSKINGUM UNIVERSITY4× · 2019–2024 · $12k · revenue +16%
Funded once
- MSMurry State Universityone grant, 2020 · $6k
- AKAbbey KunklerOHIO UNIVERSITY - LANCASTERone grant, 2017 · $5k
- GLGabrielle LargeOHIO UNIVERSITY - ZANESVILLEone grant, 2017 · $5k
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.
Benedictine University is an inclusive academic community dedicated to teaching and learning, scholarship and service, truth and justice, as inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition, the social teaching of the Church, and the…
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
See schedule o.we are inspired by the ideals of our founder who, in 1896, emphasized respect for all people and ideas, who honored knowledge with practice, progress and the common good. our historical commitment to experiential learning…
Excelsior University provides educational opportunity to adult learners with an emphasis on those historically underrepresented in higher education. The University meets students where they are - academically and geographically, offering…
Union university provides christ-centered education that promotes excellence and character development in service to church and society.
Trinity university is an independent co-educational university whose mission is excellence in the interrelated areas of teaching, research and services.
The university affirms the institution's mission to prepare students for fulfilling lives, meaningful work and responsible citizenship. the university of mount union offers undergraduate and graduate degrees in a wide array of academic…
As an institution of higher education committed to the reformed christian perspective, dordt university equips students, alumni, and the broader community to work effectively toward christ-centered renewal in all aspects of contemporary…
Loyola University New Orleans, a Jesuit and Catholic institution of higher education, welcomes students of diverse backgrounds and prepares them to lead meaningful lives with and for others; to pursue truth, wisdom, and virtue; and to work…
Walsh university is an independent, coeducational catholic, liberal arts and sciences institution dedicated to educating its students to become leaders in service to others through a values-based education with an international perspective…
Xavier is a jesuit catholic university rooted in the liberal arts tradition. our mission is to educate each student intellectually, morally, and spiritually. we create learning opportunities through rigorous academic and professional…
True to our christian heritage, we prepare students from diverse religious, cultural, educational and economic backgrounds to live life fully.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Muskingum University and the most unlike its peers is Hobart Institute of Welding Technology. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
17 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. 17 of the 58 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 University of Findlay ↗
- Who funds MALONE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF WITTENBERG COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds OHIO DOMINICAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CAPITAL UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Otterbein University ↗
- Who funds MUSKINGUM UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF NORTHWESTERN OHIO ↗
- Who funds OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE MUSKINGUM COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DENISON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Heidelberg University ↗
- Who funds HOBART INSTITUTE OF WELDING TECHNOLOGY ↗
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: Columbus Foundation · Ruth M Hughes Scholarship Trust · Clapper Scholarship Fund · Ella Weiss Educational Fund · The Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges · Folds of Honor Foundation · A K Stephenson Fdn Char Tr Agy · Ritton Family Foundation · Coshocton Foundation · National Collegiate Athletic Association · The Dayton Foundation · Tulsa Community 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 Shelly 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 Shelly Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Shelly 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.