· Public charity
Smiles for Life Foundation
To support medical & dental treatment, prevention of childhood diseases and promote health education for poor children in the inner cities of this nation.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 15 grants below total $506,919 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $642,447 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $135,528 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k8 grants · $52k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $64k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $391k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MORTENSON CHARITABLE FOUNDATION | $160,241 |
| BOXES OF BASICS | $84,100 |
| ESPERANZA INTERNATIONAL | $79,919 |
| KOLTAEL INC | $66,276 |
| EAGLE UNIVERSITY | $35,985 |
| CHRIST'S HAVEN FOR CHILDREN | $16,685 |
| CANDLELIGHTERS CHILDHOOD CANCER FAM | $11,302 |
| ELIZABETHTOWN AREA EDUCATION | $9,581 |
| TRI-COUNTY YMCA | $7,854 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF NEW ALBANY | $6,500 |
| FAMILY ROOM | $6,440 |
| HOLY PURSUIT DREAM FOUNDATION | $6,131 |
| OKLAHOMA DENTAL FOUNDATION | $5,899 |
| MACOMB FOSTER CLOSET | $5,005 |
| CHILDREN'S FLIGHT OF HOPE | $5,001 |
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 (FY17–25, $507k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 50% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
42 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2025, 31 since wound down; 4 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $23k 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
- BOBoxes of Basics2× · 2024–2025 · $95k · revenue +244%
- CHChrist's Haven for Children Inc8× · 2017–2025 · $81k · revenue +58%
- WFWARRIOR FOUNDATION FREEDOM STATION5× · 2017–2021 · $65k · revenue +41%
Funded once
- GDGame Day Memoriesgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $25k · revenue +45%
- VDVIRGINIA DENTAL ASSOCIATION FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $22k · revenue -71%
- TLTHE LIFE IS GOOD PLAYMAKER PROJECT INCone grant, 2017 · $20k · revenue -15%
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.
To help kids and families heal the emotional scars of childhood cancer and learn to thrive.
Our mission is to ensure that every child in our community receives the family-centered care that he or she needs to thrive. there is no human endeavor that is outside the realm of health.
Children's miracle network (dba "children's miracle network hospitals") works to save kids' lives by bringing people together to raise money for children's healthcare in local communities.
CancerFree KIDS exists to raise awareness of the need for more funding for pediatric cancer research and to raise funds that are invested in early stage, potentially game-changing research focused on gentler treatments and cures for…
Provide monetary or financial aid exclusively for charitable, religious, scientific, literary or educational purposes and to solicit, receive, maintain and disburse funds for these purposes and for the betterment of children.
Gamechanger leverages technology and innovation to help children and their families who encounter life threatening illnesses.
Miracles for kids helps families with critically-ill children battle bankruptcy, homelessness, hunger and depression so they concentrate on what is most important - fighting for their child's life.
Bounce children's foundation transforms the lives of chronically ill children, and their families, shifting all from surviving to thriving.
Wichita's littlest heroes (wlh) exists to provide hope, help, and happiness to families of children ages 0-18 in the kansas area who are battling life-threatening medical conditions. wlh strives to accomplish this be being a physical and…
Organization's mission to improve health outcomes for children; be a leader in creating innovative solutions to pediatric healthcare problems; and excel in care, advocacy, research. as the nation's children's hospital, the mission of…
Beat childhood cancer drives childhood cancer research and raises awareness, making a difference in kids' survival today. our vision is to change the story for the next family by finding viable treatments and ultimately, cures for…
Camp one step by children's oncology services is a leader in providing empowering, supportive, educational, and fun experiences for children (ages birth-19) who have been diagnosed with cancer and their families. we are the only local…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Family Room Foster Care Resource Center and the most unlike its peers is The Dustin J Wells Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 26 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 38% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
79 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. 79 of the 92 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 O WAYNE AND GLENDA SUE MORTENSON CHARITABLE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SMILES FOR HOPE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE DUSTIN J WELLS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ESPERANZA INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds EAGLE U INC ↗
- Who funds KOLTAEL INC ↗
- Who funds Boxes of Basics ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR HUMANITARIAN OUTREACH AND INTERCULTURAL EXCHANGE ↗
- Who funds Christ's Haven for Children Inc ↗
- Who funds WARRIOR FOUNDATION FREEDOM STATION ↗
- Who funds POWER PACKS PROJECT ↗
- Who funds TRI COUNTY YMCA OF THE OZARKS ↗
- Who funds FIGHTING DUCHENNE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FELLOWSHIP OF CHRISTIAN ATHLETES ↗
- Who funds Hendrick Medical Center ↗
- Who funds OUR FATHER'S CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds DONUM DEI THE RIDING THERAPY CENTER ↗
- Who funds ELIZABETHTOWN AREA EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Sterling Angel of Smiles Nonprofit Corporation ↗
- Who funds Project Ride Inc ↗
- Who funds CASA A VOICE FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds Game Day Memories ↗
- Who funds PATRIOT PAWS SERVICE DOGS ↗
- Who funds OKLAHOMA DENTAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA DENTAL ASSOCIATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF ALBANY INC ↗
- Who funds Children's Home Society of North Carolina Inc ↗
- Who funds CAMP COURAGEOUS OF IOWA ↗
- Who funds WORLD HEALTH DENTAL ORGANIZATION ↗
- Who funds THE LIFE IS GOOD PLAYMAKER PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S FOUNDATION FOR A GREATER MEMPHIS ↗
- Who funds AGAPE THERAPEUTIC RIDING RESOURCES ↗
- Who funds BACKPACK BEGINNINGS ↗
- Who funds MID-SOUTH FOOD BANK ↗
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: The Gap Foundation · Enterprise Holdings Foundation · Joy In Childhood Foundation Inc · Lincoln Financial Foundation Inc · International Paper Company Foundation · Triangle Community Foundation Inc · Rochester Area Community Foundation · Truist Foundation Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Equitable Foundation Inc · Charities Aid Foundation America · Global Impact
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 Smiles for Life 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.
- Comfort Cases Inc — 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Smiles for Life Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Smiles for Life 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.