· Private foundation
Stephens Family Foundation Inc
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k3 grants · $11k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $171k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $70k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Ninewise Publishing Foundation | $70,000 |
| Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design | $40,000 |
| Big Brothers Big Sisters | $40,000 |
| Smith College | $21,250 |
| Smith College | $20,000 |
| Incourage Community | $10,000 |
| UMass Amherst Fdn | $10,000 |
| Big Brothers Big Sisters | $10,000 |
| All-in-Milwaukee | $10,000 |
| Messengers of Mercy | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| Friends of Dartmouth Equestrian | $5,000 |
| Messengers of Mercy | $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 (FY19–24, $320k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
25 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2025, 17 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k 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
THE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MILWAUKEE CORPORATION8× · 2017–2024 · $1.0M · revenue +39%- UCUNITED COMMUNITY CENTER INC6× · 2019–2024 · $320k · revenue +52%
MILWAUKEE INSTITUTE OF ART & DESIGN INC7× · 2019–2025 · $220k · revenue +35%
Funded once
- USUniversity School of Milwaukee - Scholarshipsone grant, 2023 · $140k
- MSMCPREPARATORY SCHOOL OF WISCONSIN INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $84k · revenue +32%
- CCCARLETON COLLEGEone grant, 2024 · $25k · revenue +13%
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.
Mcad provides a transformative education within a community of support for creative students of all backgrounds to work, collaborate, and lead with confidence in a dynamic, interconnected world.
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
Mity's mission is to inspire and challenge intellectually curious students to pursue their passions within a diverse, inclusive community and empower them by building skills and relationships for lifelong success.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Mount mary university, an urban catholic university for women sponsored by the school sisters of notre dame, provides an environment for the development of the whole person. the university encourages leadership, integrity, and a deep sense…
Mcdaniel college is a diverse student-centered community committed to excellence in the liberal arts & sciences and professional studies with careful mentoring and attention to the individual. mcdaniel changes lives. we challenge students…
The mission of umass global is to provide students with an accessible inclusive, and transformative education based on excellence and flexibility, creating lasting value and relevance for a dynamic world.
Meredith college, grounded in the liberal arts and committed to professional preparation, educates and inspires students to live with integrity and provide leadership for the needs, opportunities and challenges of society.
The mission of the michigan science center is to inspire curious minds of all ages to discover, explore and appreciate science, technology, engineering and math in a creative, dynamic learning environment.
We take a joyful, community-oriented approach to raising engaged citizens, deep learners, and brave adventurers with the skills, creativity, and heart needed to better the world.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Community Center Inc and the most unlike its peers is Ninewise Publishing Foundation Inc. 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 36 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 SCHOOL OF MILWAUKEE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE INSTITUTE OF ART & DESIGN INC ↗
- Who funds NINEWISE PUBLISHING FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF THE SMITH COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds UNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND INC ↗
- Who funds MESSENGERS OF MERCY ↗
- Who funds MILWAUKEE YOUTH ARTS CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF GREEN COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds MCPREPARATORY SCHOOL OF WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds MALAIKA EARLY LEARNING CENTER ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER MILWAUKEE INC ↗
- Who funds ALL-IN MILWAUKEE INC ↗
- Who funds CARLETON COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds DANCEWORKS INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AMHERST COLLEGE TRUSTEES ↗
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: Greater Milwaukee Foundation Inc · United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County Inc · Baird Foundation Inc · Rite-Hite Foundation Inc · Anon Charitable Trust · Harley-Davidson Foundation Inc · Cedar Street Charitable Foundation Inc · Herbert H Kohl Charities Inc · The Werner Family Foundation · Hauske Family Foundation Inc · Bert L and Patricia S Steigleder Charitable · Ralph Evinrude Foundation Inc
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 Stephens Family Foundation Inc 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.
- The Trustees of the Smith College — 1% of income from government
- Amherst College Trustees — 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 Stephens Family Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Stephens Family Foundation Inc 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.