· Private foundation
Shoemaker Family Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k9 grants · $37k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $70k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NEBRASKA HUMANITIES COUNCIL | $15,000 |
| ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| OPEN SKY POLICY INSTITUTE | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| NEBRASKA APPLESEED | $10,000 |
| NEBRASKA JOURNALISM TRUST | $10,000 |
| CAMBRIDGE PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $5,000 |
| CAMBRIDGE PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $5,000 |
| CAMBRIDGE PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $5,000 |
| MATT TALBOT KITCHEN AND OUTREACH | $5,000 |
| FRIENDSHIP HOME OF LINCOLN | $5,000 |
| CITY OF CAMBRIDGE | $5,000 |
| CAMBRIDGE SENIOR CENTER INC | $3,000 |
| SMA FAMILY AND FRIENDS | $3,000 |
| TEAMMATES MENTORING PROGRAM | $1,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY20–20, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
How this is measured
Where the work is directed
The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.
About 6% of Shoemaker Family Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 92% of the giving stays in NE; by stated purpose, 88%.
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
21 repeat relationships: 11 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down; 2 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, 77% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $25k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- MTMATT TALBOT KITCHEN & OUTREACH8× · 2017–2025 · $46k · revenue +148%
- NJNEBRASKA JOURNALISM TRUST3× · 2023–2025 · $40k · revenue +75%
- CRCRANE RIVER THEATER COMPANY INC4× · 2018–2023 · $35k · revenue +78%
Funded once
- CSCAMBRIDGE SCHOOL FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $22k
- FFFLATWATER FREE PRESS NEWSPAPERone grant, 2022 · $20k
- TCTHE CAMBRIDGE PUBLIC SCHOOL FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $15k
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.
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.
Support for community colleges
The nebraska civic engagement table works with nonprofits to increase voting and build an engaged nebraska.
A restorative justice agency committed to habilitating justice in nebraska.
To promote, facilitate and develop or co-develop affordable housing in lincoln county, nebraska.
Mission: community action of nebraska strives to alleviate poverty through enhancing program development, providing technical assistance, and advocating public policy to support all community action agencies in nebraska.
Lincoln college uniquely empowers students to realize their full potential
To promote corn and corn products
The food bank of lincoln, inc. is a nonprofit corporation organized to meet the emergency food needs for the sixteen counties it serves in southeast nebraska.the food bank of lincoln serves as a key organization for receiving, inspecting,…
To promote credit unions in nebraska
The council of indepependent nebraska colleges foundation exists to provide operating funds and scholarship support for students attending nebraska's independent institutions of excellence.
Labor relations
How this is measured
16 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
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 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 16 of the 35 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.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
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.
- Who funds MATT TALBOT KITCHEN & OUTREACH ↗
- Who funds NEBRASKA JOURNALISM TRUST ↗
- Who funds NEBRASKA HUMANITIES COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds CRANE RIVER THEATER COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds NEBRASKA CULTURAL ENDOWMENT ↗
- Who funds OPENSKY POLICY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds NEBRASKA LIONS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CAMBRIDGE SENIOR CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN ORCHESTRA ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds FRIENDSHIP HOME OF LINCOLN INC ↗
- Who funds NEBRASKA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NEBRASKA APPLESEED CENTER FOR LAW IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST ↗
- Who funds HASTINGS COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CAMBRIDGE COMMUNITY DAYCARE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Inner City Impact ↗
- Who funds FAMILIES OF SPINAL MUSCULAR ATROPHY DBA CURE SMA ↗
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.
Open a dossier: Kitty M Perkins Foundation · Lincoln Community Foundation Inc · The Sherwood Foundation · Cooper Foundation · Abel Foundation · Weitz Family Foundation · The Graff Charitable Foundation Inc Co P Mark Graff · Hormel Harris Foundation · James Stuart III Family Foundation · Annette and Paul Smith Charitable Fund · Bettenhausen Family Foundation · Acklie Charitable Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization Shoemaker Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Shoemaker Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Shoemaker Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Shoemaker 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.
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