· Private foundation
The Ben Harding Family Foundation
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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| YMCA | $7,000 |
| NORTHERN ILLINOIS FOOD BANK | $7,000 |
| ROCKFORD ART MUSEUM | $2,000 |
| PRIMAVERA FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
| REMEDIES RENEWING LIVES | $1,500 |
| KLEHM ARBORETUM & BOTANIC GARDEN | $1,500 |
| DISCOVERY CENTER MUSEUM | $1,500 |
| LIFESCAPE | $1,500 |
| CENTER OF HOPE BARBARA OLSON | $1,000 |
| CENTER FOR SIGHT AND HEARING | $1,000 |
| ROCKFORD SEXUAL ASSAULT COUNSELING | $1,000 |
| MILESTONE INC | $1,000 |
| KEEP NORTHERN ILLINOIS BEAUTIFUL | $1,000 |
| GOLDIE FLOBERG CENTER | $1,000 |
| ROCKFORD AREA ARTS COUNCIL | $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 (FY17–24, $53k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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.
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 +47% since the first grant, against +24% for the ones you funded once.
55 repeat relationships — 35 still active in FY2024, 20 since wound down; 1 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, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $500 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
- NINORTHERN ILLINOIS FOOD BANK8× · 2017–2024 · $20k · revenue +43%
- TPThe Primavera Foundation Inc8× · 2017–2024 · $17k · revenue +54%
- KNKEEP NORTHERN ILLINOIS BEAUTIFUL7× · 2017–2024 · $16k · revenue +1%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $5k
- AAALZHEIMER ASSOCIATIONone grant, 2017 · $3k
- RAROCKFORD AREA CONVENTION BUREAUone grant, 2023 · $2k
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 organization provides low income affordable housing under illinois housing development authority guidelines.
To provide analysis and commentary on cultural, economic, political, and educational issues through a published monthly opinion magazine and to operate continuing adult educational conferences in american and european literature and…
To educate men & women to lead responsible lives by means of a curriculum grounded in liberal arts learning and complemented and extended by professional and practical experience, through the total academic and co-curricular experience,…
Provide affordable housing solutions for low-income families.
Rock river valley blood center, in partnership with our community, is dedicated to providing safe, high value blood products and services to people in need.
Our focus is on making shortterm investments which will significantly improve the longterm wellbeing of our clients. we will measure our performance against these standards by continuously communicating with our clients, and will take…
To advocate on behalf of those in need of decent shelter by building and renovating affordable houses.
The mission of the racine zoological society is to foster an enlightening and affordable wildlife experience that improves the bond between people and nature. the society will provide for the recreation and education of the people, the…
The mission of goodwill is to create opportunities for individuals with barriers to enhance their lives. barriers include physical or mental disabilities, lack of education and job preparation, socio-economic disadvantages, and others.…
Provide community-based residential housing to adults with autism and/or severe developmental disabilities. also provide developmental training and other supports to this same population.
Advancement and preservation of the fine arts through exhibitions, lectures, demonstrations and educational programs.
Rockford regional health council is a not-for-profit social service corporation organized under the laws of the state of illinois for the purpose of improving community health through data gatering and analysis, education and advocacy.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Rockford Day Nursery and the most unlike its peers is Natural Land Institute. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 44 years old; the field is 22. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% 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 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.
47 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. 47 of the 81 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 NORTHERN ILLINOIS FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds The Primavera Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds KEEP NORTHERN ILLINOIS BEAUTIFUL ↗
- Who funds KLEHM ARBORETUM AND BOTANIC GARDEN INC ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds DISCOVERY CENTER MUSEUM OF ROCKFORD INC ↗
- Who funds ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE & RELATED DISORDERS ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds TRINITY HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds CARPENTER'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD AREA ARTS COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds REMEDIES RENEWING LIVES ↗
- Who funds GOLDIE B FLOBERG CENTER ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD RESCUE MISSION MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds SHELTER CARE MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds NATURAL LAND INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds NOAH'S ARK ANIMAL SANCTUARY INC ↗
- Who funds REGIONAL ACCESS & MOBILIZATION PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds PAWS INC ↗
- Who funds THE LITERACY COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD DAY NURSERY ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD SEXUAL ASSAULT COUNSELING INC ↗
- Who funds MILESTONE INC ↗
- Who funds MIDWAY VILLAGE & MUSEUM CENTER ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR SIGHT & HEARING ↗
- Who funds BARBARA OLSON CENTER OF HOPE ↗
- Who funds THE SPECTRUM SCHOOL ↗
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 Northern IL · The Kjellstrom Family Foundation · Bergstrom Inc Charitable Foundation Xxxxx2008 · United Way of Rock River Valley · Tracy E Anderson Charitable Foundation · The David & Colleen Anderson Charitable Foundation · Kristin L Anderson Charitable Foundation · Amended and Restated Brubaker Charitable Trust · Guy Reno Family Foundation · Blazer Foundation · John & Linda Anderson Charitable Foundation · Sjostrom & Sons 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 The Ben Harding Family 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 The Ben Harding Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Ben Harding Family 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.