· Private foundation
Steven and Marcy Schaeffer Family Foundation Inc
Its FY2025 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 clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $10k
- $10k–50k12 grants · $197k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $65k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ITHACA WELCOMES REFUGEES INC | $65,000 |
| TIOGA COUNTY RURAL MINISTRY (TCRM) | $46,500 |
| COMMUNITY ARTS PARTNERSHIP OF TOMPKINS COUNTY | $24,000 |
| TIOGA COUNTY BOYS & GIRLS CLUB INC | $20,000 |
| COMPASSIONATE CARE ALS | $15,000 |
| THE CHERRY ARTS | $15,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $14,000 |
| CENTER FOR TRANSFORMATIVE ACTION | $12,000 |
| ROSIE'S PLACE | $10,000 |
| WEAVE COMMUNITY INC | $10,000 |
| OPPORTUNITIES ALTERNATIVES AND RESOURCES OF TOMPKINS COUNTY INC | $10,000 |
| MORE THAN WORDS | $10,000 |
| SHARED KITCHEN - ITHACA | $10,000 |
| GREATER ITHACA ACTIVITIES CENTER INC | $8,000 |
| ITHACA UNDERGROUND | $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 (FY20–25, $143k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 90% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +38% since the first grant, against +9% for the ones you funded once.
23 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 1 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, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15k 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
- CACommunity Arts Partnership of Tompkins County Inc8× · 2018–2025 · $196k · revenue +98%
- OAOPPORTUNITIES ALTERNATIVES AND RESOURCES OF TOMPKINS COUNTY8× · 2017–2025 · $177k · revenue +37%
- TCThe Cherry Arts Inc9× · 2017–2025 · $118k · revenue +327%
Funded once
- CBCascadilla Boat Club Ltdone grant, 2017 · $50k · revenue +4%
- CCCATHOLIC CHARITIESone grant, 2020 · $10k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2024 · $5k
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 History Center in Tompkins County, Inc. is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to preserve and encourage access to its unique collections, while designing learning experiences and services that create opportunities for people to…
The mission of the organization is to foster sustainable economic growth through service to our members, strategic advocacy, workforce development, destination marketing, and quality of life investments. Our vision is an inclusive…
Provide transportation benefits, discounts and resources to developers, employers and individuals communting to and from Tompkins County to support people in commuting and getting around town in a reliable, sustainable and healthly way.
The 7th art corporation encourages central new york residents to explore the power of film to entertain, educate, and to celebrate the human experience.
Tompkins community action, inc. (tcaction) "believes an active community can produce powerful change". located in upstate new york's finger lakes region, tcaction has served the community for over 55 years, implementing programs that…
Providing cultural and educational programs to the homer, new york community. to enhance the quality of life for the people of the central new york community that preserves and enriches local culture and provides stewardship for a…
Committed to providing families with the highest standard of child-inspired, professionally-nurtured care and opportunities for learning.
Our mission is to help people escape the cycle of poverty and homelessness, secure stable long-term housing, and achieve a self-directed vision for their lives. We achieve this mission by providing affordable, transitional housing combined…
Saratoga arts was established to enrich the region by cultivating a vibrant arts community and by ensuring that the arts are accessible to all.
The Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, Inc. (the Catskill Center) is a not-for-profit organization under the non-profit laws of the State of New York. The mission of the Catskill Center is to preserve and enrich the…
The mission of the SPCA of Tompkins County is to protect companion animals. We are a no-kill shelter dedicated to preventing animal cruelty and overpopulation. We promote responsible pet stewardship by providing education, counseling and…
Provide daily meeting space for 12 step recovery programs and related groups. we estimate between 350 and 400 people use the facility daily in their pursuit of recovery from addiction to alcohol and other dangerous drug
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County Inc and the most unlike its peers is Cascadilla Boat Club Ltd. 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 34 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 35 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 Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County Inc ↗
- Who funds OPPORTUNITIES ALTERNATIVES AND RESOURCES OF TOMPKINS COUNTY ↗
- Who funds The Cherry Arts Inc ↗
- Who funds STATE THEATRE OF ITHACA INC ↗
- Who funds FREE SCIENCE INC ↗
- Who funds Tioga County Rural Ministry Inc ↗
- Who funds ITHACA WELCOMES REFUGEES INC ↗
- Who funds TIOGA COUNTY BOYS & GIRLS CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER ITHACA ACTIVITIES CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Cascadilla Boat Club Ltd ↗
- Who funds ITHACA COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR TRANSFORMATIVE ACTION ↗
- Who funds WEAVE COMMUNITY INC ↗
- Who funds ROSIE'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds THE ADVOCACY CENTER OF TOMPKINS COUNTY ↗
- Who funds MORE THAN WORDS INC ↗
- Who funds SHARED KITCHEN ITHACA INC ↗
- Who funds YOUTH FARM PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds Compassionate Care ALS Inc ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF TOMPKINS COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds The Childrens Room Center for Grieving Children ↗
- Who funds ITHACA UNDERGROUND INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR THE ARTS AT ITHACA INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONNECTION INC ↗
- Who funds Loaves and Fishes of Tompkins County Inc ↗
- Who funds WHARTON STUDIO MUSEUM ↗
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: Community Foundation of Tompkins County Inc · Legacy Foundation of Tompkins County · Park Foundation Inc · Tompkins Charitable Gift Fund Inc · City Federation of Women's Organizations Inc · Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies Inc · Social Service League of Ithaca Inc · Norathco Foundation · United Way of Tompkins County Inc · The Tsb Foundation Inc · Triad Foundation Inc · Yhb Charitable Endowment 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 Steven and Marcy Schaeffer 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.
- More Than Words Inc — 24% of income from government
- The Nature Connection Inc — 5% of income from government
- Rosie's Place 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 Steven and Marcy Schaeffer Family Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Steven and Marcy Schaeffer 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.