· Private foundation
Sterling Family Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k23 grants · $59k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $105k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $120k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNITED WAY OF GREATER STARK COUNTY | $120,000 |
| AKRONCANTON REGIONAL FOODBANK | $30,000 |
| COMMQUEST SERVICES INC | $30,000 |
| THE SALVATION ARMY | $20,000 |
| AMERICAN RED CROSS | $15,000 |
| PYMATUNING VALLEY ATHLETIC BOOSTERS | $10,000 |
| PERRY HIGH SCHOOL ADULT BOOSTER CLUB | $5,000 |
| REFUGE OF HOPE | $5,000 |
| BEACON CHARITABLE PHARMACY INC | $5,000 |
| ARTS IN STARK | $5,000 |
| TUNNELS TO TOWERS | $5,000 |
| PROJECT REBUILD | $5,000 |
| YMCA OF CENTRAL STARK COUNTY | $5,000 |
| HAMMER & NAILS INC | $3,000 |
| SAM CENTER | $2,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY19–24, $143k) 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 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.
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +24% since the first grant, against +11% for the ones you funded once.
28 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2024, 9 since wound down; 10 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, 87% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $37k 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
- ARAKRON-CANTON REGIONAL FOODBANK5× · 2019–2024 · $163k · revenue +18%
- ANAmerican National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches3× · 2022–2024 · $40k · revenue +23%
- AIARTS IN STARK5× · 2019–2024 · $30k · revenue +17%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2019 · $20k
- ROREFUGE OF HOPE MINISTRIESgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $15k · revenue +211%
- YYWCAone grant, 2022 · $10k
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.
Fight hunger in our community by providing financial, logistic, strategic, and food support to our network of local emergency food pantries.
Ending homelessness in stark county ohio.
United way of bucks county creates opportunities for quality education, financial stability, and good health to ensure real, lasting change for individuals and our communities.
To promote the revitalization of neighborhoods in stark county by leading partnership-based, neighborhood-specific, revitalization efforts and developing programs that support community reinvestment.
We strengthen stark county by driving business growth and leading its economic transformation.
To improve family quality of life
Assist the homeless to rise out of poverty
To promote economic self-sufficiency among low-income families and individuals of stark county.
Goodwill industries of akron, ohio, inc is a not-for-profit corporation that helps individuals prepare for, find, and retain employment. goodwill serves the five-county region of summit, portage, medina, ashland, and richland. goodwill…
The Mission of the Stark County Convention & Visitors' Bureau is to attract and engage visitors, serve and educate regional tourisim partners, and generate economic growth for the community through travel and tourism development.
Provide elderly services to allow persons to stay in their own homes
United way is strengthening the upper ohio valley's resilience, advance health, youth opportunities, and financial security.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Commquest Services Inc and the most unlike its peers is Jackson Bear Hugs Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 24 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
31 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. 31 of the 50 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 United Way of Greater Stark County ↗
- Who funds AKRON-CANTON REGIONAL FOODBANK ↗
- Who funds COMMQUEST SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds ARTS IN STARK ↗
- Who funds Project Rebuild Inc ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY WORLDWIDE ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds REFUGE OF HOPE MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds BOYS' & GIRLS' CLUB OF MASSILLON INC ↗
- Who funds PYMATUNING VALLEY ATHLETIC BOOSTERS ↗
- Who funds Hammer & Nails Inc ↗
- Who funds POLICE K-9 ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds YMCA of Central Stark County ↗
- Who funds Beacon Charitable Pharmacy Inc ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PERRY HIGH SCHOOL ADULT BOOSTER CLUB ↗
- Who funds Total Living Center ↗
- Who funds Stark County Diaper Bank Inc ↗
- Who funds WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds Compassion Delivered Inc ↗
- Who funds TOMTOD IDEAS INC ↗
- Who funds REPLAY FOR KIDS ↗
- Who funds CANTON CALVARY MISSION ↗
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: Stark Community Foundation · Hoover Foundation Income Account · Sisters of Charity Foundation of Canton · Timken Co Charitable & Educational Fund · Austin-Bailey Health & Wellness Foundation · United Way of Greater Stark County · Health Foundation of Greater Massillon · The Belden Brick Charitable Trust · Synchrony Foundation · William & Minnette Goldsmith Foundation · Timken Foundation of Canton · North Canton Medical 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 Sterling 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.
- Wounded Warrior Project 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 Sterling Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Sterling 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.