· Private foundation
Stern Foundation
Its FY2026 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
92% of Stern Foundation’s FY2026 grant dollars went to Richmond Community Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2026 names 12 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2025, the last year Stern Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 20 organizations, $47k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2021–2026.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PGA TOUR CHARITIES | $8,500 |
| PINE RIDGE MISSIONARY TRAINING CAMP | $6,500 |
| MUSEUM OF THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY | $5,000 |
| FRIENDS OF ISRAEL | $4,000 |
| BARNS OF ROSE HILL | $2,000 |
| JEWS FOR JESUS | $2,000 |
| THE VALENTINE | $2,000 |
| GRACE AND HOLY TRINITY CHURCH | $1,367 |
| ST CATHERINE'S SCHOOL | $1,250 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,166 |
| BLUE RIDGE WILDLIFE CENTER | $1,028 |
| BLUE RIDGE SCHOOL | $1,027 |
| WESTMINSTER CANTERBURY | $1,000 |
| PIEDMONT ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL | $1,000 |
| ST LUKE'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH | $1,000 |
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 (FY21–25, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 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 +15% since the first grant, against -34% for the ones you funded once.
42 repeat relationships — 29 still active in FY2025, 13 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call). Read against FY2025, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2026, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- TVTHE VALENTINE MUSEUM6× · 2021–2026 · $14k · revenue +49%
- BOBARNS OF ROSE HILL6× · 2021–2026 · $11k · revenue +21%
Washington and Lee University5× · 2021–2025 · $8k · revenue +69%
Funded once
- MCMASSEY CANCER CENTERone grant, 2022 · $1k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILLone grant, 2022 · $300
- BVBOYCE VOLUNTEER FIRE COMPANY INCone grant, 2021 · $150 · revenue -34%
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.
The university of virginia investment management company (uvimco) is organized to invest funds on behalf of the rector and visitors of the university of virginia (the university or uva) and university-associated organizations (uaos).
Virginia wesleyan university is a fully accredited liberal arts, united-methodist related institution founded in 1961.
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
To provide investment and investment management and related services to the rector and the board of visitors of virginia commonwealth university (vcu), and/or to the private and independent foundations and other entities affiliated with…
The mission of the University is to inspire independent thinkers who become trustworthy, effective leaders that shape caring communities. The vision of the University of Lynchburg is to cultivate a world that is innovative, authentic, and…
The mission of westminster college is to help students develop competencies, commitments, and characteristics which have distinguished human beings at their best. see continuation on schedule o.the liberal arts tradition is the foundation…
The William & Mary Foundation advances the university's highest aspirations by securing private support, guiding a multi-asset investment portfolio, and offering strategic leadership. In this work, we propel the university toward national…
To provide administrative services to university of virginia (university) entities, university associated organizations, or other entities involved in activities which support the university. to engage in matters pertaining to real…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
To graduate people of uncommon integrity, competence, and maturity, who are effective lifelong learners and responsible citizens, and who are prepared to contribute substantially to the world in which they live.
Provides seminary, under-graduate, graduate, doctoral, and other continuing education programs
Virginia tech foundation, inc. (vtf) is a virginia nonstock corporation established in 1948 for the sole purpose of managing virginia tech's endowment to advance virginia tech's mission and its strategic priorities.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Westminster Canterbury Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Boyce Volunteer Fire Company 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 54 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
24 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 24 of the 49 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 Richmond Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds PGA TOUR CHARITIES INC ↗
- Who funds ADVANCING NATIVE MISSIONS ↗
- Who funds THE VALENTINE MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds BARNS OF ROSE HILL ↗
- Who funds THE GLASS-GLEN BURNIE MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds Washington and Lee University ↗
- Who funds BLUE RIDGE WILDLIFE CENTER ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds THE PIEDMONT ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds THE BLUE RIDGE SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds ST CHRISTOPHER'S SCHOOL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE ONE LOVE FOUNDATION IN HONOR OF YEARDLEY LOVE INC ↗
- Who funds WESTMINSTER CANTERBURY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CLARKE COUNTY HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL HIGH SCHOOL IN VIRGINIA ↗
- Who funds THE CORPORATION OF MERCER UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE COLLEGIATE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SHELTERING ARMS HOSPITAL ↗
- Who funds WESTMINSTER CANTERBURY CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds HOLLINS UNIVERSITY CORPORATION ↗
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 Bank of Clarke County Foundation · Andrew U Ferrari Foundation · American Woodmark Foundation Inc · Tj Guarriello Jr Family Foundation · Buckley Family Endowment Inc · The Guide Foundation · Wise Foundation · The Mary Morton Parsons Foundation · The Community Foundation Inc · Renaissance Charitable Foundation Inc · American Endowment Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
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 Stern 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.