· Private foundation
Sterling & Shelli Gardner Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k7 grants · $29k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $35k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COURAGE REINS | $25,000 |
| GIVE KIDS A SMILE | $10,000 |
| FIVE 12 FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| ELIZABETH SMART FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| THE POLICY PROJECT | $5,000 |
| 5 FOR THE FIGHT FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| HAPPY FACTORY | $2,500 |
| NEW HOPE CALVARY CHAPEL | $1,250 |
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 (FY20–24, $72k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 27% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +67% since the first grant, against +20% for the ones you funded once.
12 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 9 since wound down; 6 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, 51% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $31k 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
- CRCourage Reins7× · 2017–2024 · $425k · revenue +86%
- AHAmerican Heritage Schools Inc5× · 2017–2023 · $68k · revenue +77%
- F1FIVE 12 FOUNDATION4× · 2020–2024 · $36k · revenue +250%
Funded once
- KCKANE COUNTY CHILDREN'S JUSTICE CENTone grant, 2019 · $25k
- SWStand With Ukraine Inc dba To Ukraine With Loveone grant, 2023 · $15k · revenue -90%
- TCTri-Cities Chaplaincyone grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue -35%
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.
She Is Safe prevents, rescues and restores women and girls from abuse and exploitation in high risk communities across the globe, equipping them to build lives of freedom and faith for a strong future. We accomplish our work in partnership…
We help families experiencing homelessness find lasting independence and security.
To provide homes and resources for children who have been recovered from sex trafficking worldwide so they begin their unique journey of healing and be a courageous leader in the global anti-trafficking movement.
Utah Homicide Survivors provides holistic legal representation to families of homicide victims.
Provide services to victims and potential victims of child abuse and neglect.
Increase suicide awareness and prevention
Every Shelter's mission is to build a localized refugee-aid ecosystem centered around the needs, preferences, and aspirations of refugees.
USA for UNHCR protects and supports refugees by mobilizing resources, elevating awareness, and driving action through a network of engaged supporters.
Providing care to rescue children from sex slavery, and to build a loving home environment for children to recover.
Redemption Ridge is dedicated to bringing hope and healing to young girls rescued from the horrendous world of sex trafficking. We are committed to redeeming lives, restoring dignity and placing purpose in hearts of these precious children.
To help people clear their criminal records and access opportunities. we will do this by: 1) spreading the word about utah's clean slate law to individuals with records, so they are aware of the law and its positive impact on their lives;…
Children's house international provides ethical adoption services, child focused recruitment, and family support. we support disadvantaged children with humanitarian aid in countries worldwide.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Center for Women and Children in Crisis and the most unlike its peers is Coeur Community Closet Inc. 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 16 years old; the field is 11. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 29% startups (under 5 years old) — 13% of your grantees by number, and just 6% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 43 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 Courage Reins ↗
- Who funds American Heritage Schools Inc ↗
- Who funds OUR RESCUE ↗
- Who funds FIVE 12 FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FUR SISTERS FUREVER URS RESCUE INC ↗
- Who funds Stand With Ukraine Inc dba To Ukraine With Love ↗
- Who funds The Center for Women and Children in Crisis ↗
- Who funds Tri-Cities Chaplaincy ↗
- Who funds Encircle Family and Youth Resource Center ↗
- Who funds STELLA H OAKS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL LIFEVISION INC ↗
- Who funds BEACHES GO GREEN INC ↗
- Who funds THE ROAD HOME ↗
- Who funds INTERMOUNTAIN HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds HOUSE OF CHAMPIONS ↗
- Who funds Spectrum Academy ↗
- Who funds International Rescue Committee INC ↗
- Who funds A CHILD'S HOPE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Elizabeth Smart Foundation ↗
- Who funds Fight the New Drug Inc ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS AMERICA ↗
- Who funds THORN ↗
- Who funds THE POLICY PROJECT ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COEUR COMMUNITY CLOSET INC ↗
- Who funds TOURETTE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds HAPPY FACTORY INC ↗
- Who funds TABITHA'S WAY ↗
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 Ashton Family Foundation · Sorenson Legacy Foundation · The Community Foundation of Utah · University Impact · doTERRA Healing Hands Foundation · Beesley Family Foundation · The Miner Foundation · George S and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation · Derek and Shelaine Maxfield Family Found · Neal and Sherrie Savage Family Foundation · Wheelwright Family Charitable Foundation · Thom & Gail Williamsen Family 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 & Shelli Gardner 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.
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 & Shelli Gardner Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Sterling & Shelli Gardner 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.