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Sophia and Elmer Oerter Charitable Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Sophia and Elmer Oerter Charitable Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$152k
Granted FY2025still arriving
7
Grants FY2025still arriving
1
States reached
$75k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
0198% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2021 to 2025.

Education$165kRecreation & Sports$125kReligion$114kFood & Nutrition$77kMembership Benefit$76kPublic Benefit$54kHealth$53kYouth Development$43kOther$0
02FY2025 · 7 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k2 grants · $3k
  • $10k–50k4 grants · $75k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $75k
$18,600
Median grant
1
States reached
$3.9M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
COLUMBIA AMERICAN LEGION POST 581$75,000
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION PARISH$26,250
REGIONAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION$19,802
MAPLE GROVE CIVIC ASSOCIATION$18,600
BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA$10,000
Individual grant recipient$1,600
WATERLOO AMERICAN LEGION POST 6504$1,000
02The need
03

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 (FY22–22, $32k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%SHARE THE MAGIC FOUNDATION INC: $32k → 13%0%20%40%50%more need →
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.
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.

64%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$531k · 12 repeat orgs$296k to everyone else

12 repeat relationships: 4 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

12
15

Total granted

$531k
$250k

Still filing today

0%
33%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 70% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $46k went to new ones.

50%100%’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’21’22’23’24’25
ReligionHuman ServicesHealthOther
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

  • RO
    REGIONAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION
    5× · 2021–2025 · $90k
  • CA
    COLUMBIA AMERICAN LEGION POST 581
    4× · 2022–2025 · $83k
  • CO
    CITY OF COLUMBIA ILLINOIS
    2× · 2021–2022 · $64k

Funded once

  • CO
    CITY OF COLUMBIA
    one grant, 2024 · $55k
  • ST
    SHARE THE MAGIC FOUNDATION INCgraduated
    one grant, 2022 · $32k · revenue +40%
  • MC
    MIDWEST CLEAN FOOD AND WATER MOVEMENT
    one grant, 2022 · $27k
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
04the grantee network

5 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. 5 of the 30 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
5/5
Grantees still filing
3/5
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

REGIONAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION: $89,503 · OtherREGIONAL OFFICE OF EDUCATIONCOLUMBIA AMERICAN LEGION POST 581: $82,612 · OtherCOLUMBIA AMERICAN LEGION POST 581CITY OF COLUMBIA ILLINOIS: $63,801 · OtherCITY OF COLUMBIA ILLINOISCITY OF COLUMBIA: $55,000 · OtherCITY OF COLUMBIAHOPE CHRISTIAN CHURCH: $54,795 · OtherHOPE CHRISTIAN CHURCHCITY OF WATERLOO ILLINOIS: $47,500 · OtherCITY OF WATERLOO ILLINOISBOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA: $42,500 · OtherBOY SCOUTS OF AMERICAFRIENDS OF FISHER HOUSE: $40,000 · OtherFRIENDS OF FISHER HOUSEMIDWEST CLEAN FOOD AND WATER MOVEMENT: $27,246 · OtherIMMACULATE CONCEPTION PARISH: $26,250 · OtherHISTORY MUSEUM OF MONROE COUNTY ILLINOIS: $25,000 · Other+15 more: $190,351 · Other+15 moreSHARE THE MAGIC FOUNDATION INC: $32,227 · Human ServicesHUMAN SUPPORT SERVICES: $25,000 · HealthGood Samaritan Ministries of the Metro East: $15,000 · ReligionSOCIETY OF ST VINCENT DE PAUL ROCKFORD COUNCIL: $10,000 · Religion
Other$744,558Human Services$32,227Health$25,000Religion$25,000

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetSHARE THE MAGIC FOUNDATION INC: $32,227 over 1y, 2.7% of budgetHUMAN SUPPORT SERVICES: $25,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetGood Samaritan Ministries of the Metro East: $15,000 over 1y, 5.0% of budgetSOCIETY OF ST VINCENT DE PAUL ROCKFORD COUNCIL: $10,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetLinc Inc: $6,000 over 1y, 0.8% of budget
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 SHARE THE MAGIC FOUNDATION INC ↗
  • Who funds HUMAN SUPPORT SERVICES ↗
  • Who funds Good Samaritan Ministries of the Metro East ↗
  • Who funds SOCIETY OF ST VINCENT DE PAUL ROCKFORD COUNCIL ↗
  • Who funds Linc Inc ↗

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.

Raymond James Charita…The Bank of America C…American Online Givin…Fidelity Investments …Amazonsmile Foundation
Raymond James Charitable Endowment FundFL11.1× affinity5 shared granteesties to 4 of 4Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

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 Sophia and Elmer Oerter Charitable Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Sophia and Elmer Oerter Charitable Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2023
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%10%20%30%40%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%
    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 Sophia and Elmer Oerter Charitable Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Sophia and Elmer Oerter Charitable 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 30 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Sophia and Elmer Oerter’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
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    $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
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    where grant money is based, and what stays home