· Private foundation
Sullivan Family Fund
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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k65 grants · $58k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $134k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $207k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY SCHOOL | $105,000 |
| URBAN COMMUNITY SCHOOL | $102,115 |
| TAHOE TRUCKEE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $34,500 |
| ROCK & ROLL HALL OF FAME | $30,000 |
| MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE | $30,000 |
| COLLEGE NOW | $16,500 |
| WABUN FOUNDATION | $12,500 |
| TWO FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| PLAYHOUSE SQUARE FOUNDATION | $7,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,240 |
| HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES | $5,000 |
| UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS | $3,000 |
| DELAWARE CENTER FOR JUSTICE | $2,500 |
| HATHAWAY BROWN SCHOOL | $2,500 |
| CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART | $2,260 |
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 (FY17–24, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 47% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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 +48% since the first grant, against +26% for the ones you funded once.
132 repeat relationships — 51 still active in FY2024, 81 since wound down; 20 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, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $25k 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
- TRTHE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM INC7× · 2017–2024 · $200k · revenue +80%
- USUNIVERSITY SCHOOL7× · 2018–2024 · $186k · revenue +44%
- PAPresident and Fellows of Middlebury College7× · 2018–2024 · $148k · revenue +47%
Funded once
- SMST MARTIN DE PORRESone grant, 2017 · $45k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $10k
- MOMUSEUM OF MODERN ARTone grant, 2017 · $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.
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
See schedule o.we are inspired by the ideals of our founder who, in 1896, emphasized respect for all people and ideas, who honored knowledge with practice, progress and the common good. our historical commitment to experiential learning…
The cleveland institute of music's mission is to empower the world's most talented classical music students to fulfill their dreams and potential.
Provides innovative education in a dynamic urban setting. dedicated to academic excellence and community engagement,we prepare students of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skill,and experience to lead meaningful lives as informed…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
Depauw university develops leaders the world needs through an uncommon commitment to the liberal arts. depauw's diverse and inclusive learning and living experience, distinctive in its rigorous intellectual engagement and its global and…
The mission statement of the cleveland institute of art is as follows: to cultivate creative leaders who inspire people, strengthen communities, and contribute to a thriving and sustainable economy through an innovative education in art…
As a diverse community of learners, we cultivate integrity, curiosity, connection and resilience.
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
Educate students by linking knowledge to professional practice.
La roche university advances learning informed by ethical and service-oriented values, reflecting its catholic heritage and the charism of the sisters of divine providence.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Way of Greater Cleveland and the most unlike its peers is Dorset Historical Society. 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 47 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% 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 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.
132 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. 132 of the 299 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 THE ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME AND MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds President and Fellows of Middlebury College ↗
- Who funds TAHOE TRUCKEE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HATHAWAY BROWN SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds URBAN COMMUNITY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Playhouse Square Foundation ↗
- Who funds TWO FOUNDATION INC TWO CAFE & BOUTIQUE ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF GREATER CLEVELAND ↗
- Who funds ACHIEVE TAHOE ↗
- Who funds CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds COLLEGE NOW GREATER CLEVELAND INC ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF TRUCKEE-TAHOE ↗
- Who funds John Carroll University ↗
- Who funds HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES ↗
- Who funds CLEVELAND BALLET ↗
- Who funds CLEVELAND PSYCHOANALYTIC CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE LORD'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds DELAWARE CENTER FOR JUSTICE ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds The Musical Arts Association ↗
- Who funds WESTERN RESERVE LAND CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds PIANO INTERNATIONAL ASSOC OF NORTHERN OH ↗
- Who funds VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE SERVICES ↗
- Who funds FOUNDCARE INC ↗
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 Cleveland Foundation · The George Gund Foundation · The Lozick Family Foundation · Jewish Federation of Cleveland · The Char and Chuck Fowler Family Foundation · Jane and Jon Outcalt Foundation · The Catherine L & Edward a Lozick Foundation · Third Federal Foundation · The Kelvin & Eleanor Smith Foundation · John P Murphy Foundation · The Louise H & David S Ingalls Fdn · B Charles and Jay G Ames 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 Sullivan Family Fund 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Children and Families First — 87% of income from government
- Delaware Center for Justice — 73% of income from government
- Literacy Delaware — 30% of income from government
- The Ministry of Caring Inc — 30% of income from government
- University of Delaware — 30% of income from government
- Food Bank of Delaware Inc — 26% of income from government
- Delaware Shakespeare Festival Inc — 18% of income from government
- The Farm School Inc — 12% of income from government
- The Lord's Place Inc — 12% of income from government
- Brandywine Baroque Inc — 11% of income from government
- Shelburne Museum Inc — 9% of income from government
- Delaware Art Museum Inc — 8% of income from government
- Foundcare Inc — 6% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Middlebury College — 1% of income from government
- Sandy Hook Promise Foundation — 0% of income from government
- Partners in Health a Nonprofit Corporation — 0% of income from government
- Pan-Massachusetts Challenge Inc — 0% of income from government
- Tidewell Hospice 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 Sullivan Family Fund?
Find your warmest path to Sullivan Family Fund 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.