· Private foundation
Sterns Charitable 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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 8 grants below total $42,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $57,000 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $15,000 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k6 grants · $12k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $30k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GRANT COUNTY FAIR BOARD | $20,000 |
| CUSTER COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $10,000 |
| CRANE RIVER THEATER | $5,000 |
| SOUTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY | $2,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF WYOMING | $2,000 |
| EASTERN WYOMING COLLEGE | $1,000 |
| CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| SOUTH DAKOTA SCHOOL OF MINES | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY20–23) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of your 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +7% since the first grant, against -5% for the ones you funded once.
12 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2024, 7 since wound down; 3 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, 17% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $35k 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
- TNTHE NEBRASKA LAND TRUST INC2× · 2021–2023 · $17k · revenue +43%
- AHAEOLA H BRENNEMANN LIBRARY FOUNDATION2× · 2022–2023 · $17k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA - KEARNEY4× · 2020–2023 · $8k
Funded once
- FBFOOD BANK FOR THE HEARTLANDgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $30k · revenue +29%
- BCBUFFALO COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETYone grant, 2023 · $25k · revenue -8%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $20k
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.
Preserve south dakota history
The mission of the hastings museum is to bring to life the natural and cultural history of hastings, adams county and the great plains of nebraska through the use of educational programs, exhibits and films.
To collect, preserve and interpret the history of carver county. to preserve and interpret the andrew peterson farm through the lens of minnesota's rich immigrant and agricultural history.
To promote the conservation of natural resources in the state of north dakota
Preservation of union county iowa hisorical information and artifacts.
Operation of Historical Museum for the collection, preparation and display of artifacts from Dawson County Nebraska and disseminate and educate the public about Dawson County and it's historical treasures.
Preserve artifacts and information regarding the history of saunders county nebraska and educate citizens about the social, economic, cultural and political history of saunders county
Services include providing public with educational resources including research, maps, photos, and historical news of adams county, nebraska.
The museum of nebraska art (mona) celebrates the history of nebraska's visual art for diverse audiences. mona collects, preserves, researches, exhibits, and interprets the work of artists who were born, lived, trained, or worked in…
Protect nebraska's natural legacy by educating the public, supporting communities, and increasing civic engagement.
To promote corn and corn products
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Nebraska Land Trust Inc and the most unlike its peers is Crane River Theater 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.
9 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. 9 of the 28 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 FOOD BANK FOR THE HEARTLAND ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds THE NEBRASKA LAND TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds PRAIRIE PIONEER CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CUSTER COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds HOOKER CTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONINC ↗
- Who funds CRANE RIVER THEATER COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds SDSM&T CENTER FOR ALUMNI RELATIONS & ADVANCEMENT ↗
- Who funds CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY ↗
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 set of overlaps that mostly run through you, not between each other.
Open a dossier: Amazonsmile 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 Sterns Charitable 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.
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 Sterns Charitable Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Sterns Charitable 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.