· Private foundation
The Berning Family Foundation
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 placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ELDER HIGH SCHOOL | $7,000 |
| DRAGONFLY FOUNDATION | $5,500 |
| MOELLER HIGH SCHOOL | $3,500 |
| ST LAWRENCE CHURCH | $3,500 |
| BLOC MINISTRIES | $3,500 |
| SPARC HOPE | $3,500 |
| OUR LADY OF VICTORY | $3,500 |
| FREESTORE FOODBANK | $3,500 |
| LASALLE HIGH SCHOOL | $3,500 |
| TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
| ROGER BACON HIGH SCHOOL | $2,000 |
| ST HENRY HIGH SCHOOL | $2,000 |
| ST FRANCIS CHURCH | $2,000 |
| OUR LADY OF VISITATION | $2,000 |
| FIRE FOUNDATION OF NORTHERN KY | $1,500 |
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 (FY18–25, $28k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 89% 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.
19 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 4 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, 78% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $11k 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
- BMBLOC MINISTRIES INC7× · 2017–2025 · $21k · revenue +84%
- MCMOMS CLOSET RESOURCE CENTER INC4× · 2022–2025 · $13k · revenue +52%
- PCPREGNANCY CENTER WEST4× · 2018–2023 · $11k · revenue +146%
Funded once
- SWST WILLIAMS CHURCHone grant, 2022 · $6k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2024 · $4k
- CRCATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICESone grant, 2024 · $4k
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 mission of Praying Through ministries is to deliver gospel hope to families navigating dark seasons of pregnancy, childhood illness, hospitalization, and/or child loss (miscarriage, stillbirth, infant loss, and child loss of any age)…
The mission of Loved Twice is to clothe newborns in need with quality reused baby clothing for the first year of life. For us, even one baby going without proper clothing is one too many. We believe the community starts with serving our…
Allyfe pregnancy clinic exists to offer truth, hope, and love to every woman and family facing an unexpected pregnancy. founded in 1985, we have built four decades of integrity as a christ-centered center of excellence - providing…
Project milk mission is at the forefront of a vital mission - reducing infant mortality rates by championing breastfeeding, with a special focus on supporting low-income african american mothers. through comprehensive services spanning the…
Uniquely knitted is a non-profit organization on a mission to bring affordable mental health care to the infertility community. we help to heal the traumas of infertility while ending the isolation that goes with struggling to conceive…
Embraced International is dedicated to surrounding vulnerable children and families with support solutions and opportunities to help them find their individual success. The specific objectives and purpose of this organization shall be to…
Mothers Without Borders is dedicated to fostering resilience and self-sufficiency in developing countries through a holistic approach to community empowerment, particularly focusing on the most vulnerable women, youth, and children. Our…
Unpack is a two-tiered approach to help women unpack the pain of their pasts as well as help them on the road to residency where they can unpack their things and make a home for themselves and their children. we work with single women…
Safe haven baby boxes mission is to prevent illegal abandonment of newborns by raising awareness, offering a 24-hour hotline for mothers in crisis and offering a last resort option for women who want to maintain complete anonymity.
The policy center is improving maternal mental health outcomes through closing gaps in care delivery, including improving detection and access to evidence-based and informed clinical and community-based care. the policy center has been…
To strengthen Utah families by providing essential items, education, and resources to break the cycle of poverty and create a brighter, more secure future for children and their families.
Foreknown Ministries (FM) will operate programs that empower mothers and fathers to find healing after pregnancy or infant loss. In the US, approximately 1 in 100 pregnancies end in stillbirth (after 20 weeks). The experience is often…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Family Scholar House Inc and the most unlike its peers is Unified for Uganda. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
14 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. 14 of the 40 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 BLOC MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds MOMS CLOSET RESOURCE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE DRAGONFLY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ACTIVE HEROES INC ↗
- Who funds PREGNANCY CENTER WEST ↗
- Who funds UNIFIED FOR UGANDA ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FREESTORE FOODBANK INC ↗
- Who funds The Karen Wellington Memorial Foundation ↗
- Who funds Mission Pre-Born Inc ↗
- Who funds Matthew 25 Ministries Inc ↗
- Who funds FAMILY SCHOLAR HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds AUBREY ROSE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Best Buddies International 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: Johnson Charitable Gift Fund · The Greater Cincinnati Foundation · The Maas Family Foundation · Duke Energy Foundation · Ge Aerospace Foundation · Cise Sgo · Edelweiss Foundation · Fidelity Foundation · Baird Foundation Inc · Charities Aid Foundation America · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust 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 The Berning 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.
- Best Buddies International Inc — 6% 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 The Berning Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Berning 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.