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· Public charity

The Bicknell Family Foundation

Organized to provide funding for charitable organizations

$1.1M
Granted FY2023
16
Grants FY2023
3
States reached
$333k
Largest

Read this first · the figures below need context

100% of The Bicknell Family Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, not to grantees.

Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2023, the last year The Bicknell Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 14 organizations, $930k. It is dated, not current.

Organizations named directly on the return

0
17
0
18
0
19
0
20
0
21
0
22
14
23
0
24

Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.

01What you fund
01100% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY20172024.

Philanthropy$8.0MHealth$383kEducation$150kYouth Development$50kInternational$50kReligion$40kPublic Benefit$25kCrime & Legal$18k
02FY2023 · 16 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

The 16 grants below total $929,833 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $1,051,500 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $121,667 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 · FY2023

  • Under $10k1 grant · $8k
  • $10k–50k11 grants · $239k
  • $50k–250k3 grants · $350k
  • $250k+1 grant · $333k
$25,000
Median grant
3
States reached
$35M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
CHILDREN'S MERCY HOSPITAL$333,333
THE GREATER KANSAS CITY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION$200,000
KANSAS CITY UNIVERSITY OF MEDICINE AND BIOSCIENCES$100,000
HALO FOUNDATION$50,000
SHATTERPROOF$40,000
VICTORY LIFE CHURCH$30,000
BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTER OF GREATER KANSAS CITY$25,000
CITY YEAR KANSAS CITY$25,000
ST MARTINS ACADEMY$25,000
KANSAS BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS$25,000
FUNDAMENTAL LEARNING CENTER$25,000
COMMUNITY FOUNDAITON OF SOUTHEAST KANSAS$14,000
BRADEN'S HOPE FOR CHILDHOOD CANCER$10,000
THE CHILDREN'S PLACE INC$10,000
NORTH POINT CHURCH$10,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 66% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%BRADEN'S HOPE FOR CHILDHOOD CANCER: $10k → 5%FUNDAMENTAL LEARNING CENTER: $25k → 16%VICTORY LIFE CHURCH: $30k → 18%ST MARTINS ACADEMY: $25k → 19%NORTH POINT CHURCH: $10k → 15%KANSAS CITY METROPOLITAN CRIME COMMISSION INC: $8k → 15%SHATTERPROOF: $40k → 9%NATIONAL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FOUNDATION: $1.4M → 13%THE SERVANT FOUNDATION DBA THE SIGNATRY: $1.4M → 5%COMMUNITY FOUNDAITON OF SOUTHEAST KANSAS: $14k → 18%GREATER KANSAS CITY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION: $2.5M → 15%NATIONAL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FOUNDATION: $350k → 13%THE SERVANT FOUNDATION DBA THE SIGNATRY: $625k → 5%GREATER KANSAS CITY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION: $725k → 15%THE SERVANT FOUNDATION DBA THE SIGNATRY: $475k → 5%THE GREATER KANSAS CITY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION: $200k → 15%THE SERVANT FOUNDATION DBA THE SIGNATRY: $365k → 5%CITY YEAR KANSAS CITY: $25k → 15%THE CHILDREN'S PLACE INC: $10k → 15%HALO FOUNDATION: $50k → 15%KANSAS CITY UNIVERSITY OF MEDICINE AND BIOSCIENCES: $100k → 15%CHILDREN'S MERCY HOSPITAL: $333k → 15%BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTER OF GREATER KANSAS CITY: $25k → 15%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

03Your edge
04Your field

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.

1
Kansas City Christian School Association

To bring glory to god by providing children with an excellent christ- centered education rooted in the word of god.

2
Kansas Children's Service League Foundation

To protect and promote the well-being of children by providing ongoing support of the charitable mission of the kansas children's service league.

Philanthropy
3
Kingdom Advisors Inc

Kingdom advisors is a discipleship ministry serving christian financial professionals. the organization encourages, educates, and empowers christian financial professionals with biblical wisdom to be effective disciples of jesus christ in…

Religion
4
Cultivate Kansas City Inc

Grow food, farms and community in support of a sustainable, healthy and local food system.

Food & Nutrition
5
Kansas Healthcare Collaborative Inc

Engaging and aligning providers and stakeholders to establish Kansas as a role model for health care quality and a top performer in health care outcomes.

Health
6
The King's Christian School

The king's christian school is a k-12 prepatory school that equips and strengthens students through education and example, that they might stand firmly upon the word of god and to become effective servant-leaders who impact the world…

7
The Ku Endowment Charitable Gift Fund

To strengthen the University and communities that have touched the lives of KU alumni and friends, the mission of The KU Endowment Charitable Gift Fund is to receive and administer gifts and bequests to further the charitable objectives of…

Philanthropy
8
Kansas Wesleyan University

Kansas wesleyan university is a liberal arts college that promotes and integrates academic excellence, spiritual development, personal well-being, and social responsibility.

Education
9
Mercy Health

Mercy Health will provide assistance, support and direction to all of the health care institutions and activities operated and maintained by its Subsidiaries. The mission of Mercy Health in performing these activities shall be to provide a…

10
Kane Community Hospital Foundation

Kane community hospital foundation supports the people of upmc kane and their communities by providing access to financial resources to be used towards education and services aimed to enhance health and wellness within our region

Health
11
Kansas City Ballet Association

To inspire and engage through the beauty, power and passion of dance

Arts & Culture
12
Kansas Legal Services Inc

Kansas legal services is devoted to helping low income kansans meet their basic needs through the provision of important legal and mediation services.

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Big Brothers Big Sisters Kansas City and the most unlike its peers is St Martin's Academy. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

16 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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 16 of the 18 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
16/16
Grantees still filing
11/16
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Greater Kansas City Community Foundation — $3,378,748 · PhilanthropyGreater Kansas City Community FoundationNATL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FDN INC — $1,750,000 · PhilanthropyNATL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FDN INC+2 more — $64,000 · PhilanthropyServant Foundation — $2,894,315 · ReligionServant FoundationThe Children's Mercy Hospital — $333,333 · HealthSHATTERPROOF A NONPROFIT CORPORATION — $40,000 · Health+1 more — $10,000 · HealthKansas City University — $100,000 · EducationST MARTIN'S ACADEMY — $25,000 · EducationPHILLIPS FUNDAMENTAL LEARNING CENTER INC — $25,000 · EducationVICTORY LIFE CHURCH — $30,000 · OtherKANSAS BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS INC — $25,000 · OtherBig Brothers Big Sisters Kansas City — $25,000 · OtherCITY YEAR INC — $25,000 · OtherNORTH POINT CHURCH — $10,000 · OtherKANSAS CITY METROPOLITAN CRIME COMMISSION — $7,500 · OtherTHE CHILDREN'S PLACE INC — $10,000 · Crime & Legal
Philanthropy$5,192,748Religion$2,894,315Health$383,333Education$150,000Other$122,500Crime & Legal$10,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetGreater Kansas City Community Foundation — $3,378,748 over 3y, 0.4% of budgetServant Foundation — $2,894,315 over 4y, 0.4% of budgetNATL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FDN INC — $1,750,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetThe Children's Mercy Hospital — $333,333 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetKansas City University — $100,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetHALO FOUNDATION — $50,000 over 1y, 2.4% of budgetSHATTERPROOF A NONPROFIT CORPORATION — $40,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetST MARTIN'S ACADEMY — $25,000 over 1y, 1.6% of budgetKANSAS BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS INC — $25,000 over 1y, 0.6% of budgetPHILLIPS FUNDAMENTAL LEARNING CENTER INC — $25,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetBig Brothers Big Sisters Kansas City — $25,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetCITY YEAR INC — $25,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCommunity Foundation of Southeast Kansas — $14,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetTHE CHILDREN'S PLACE INC — $10,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetBRADENS HOPE FOR CHILDHOOD CANCER INC — $10,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetKANSAS CITY METROPOLITAN CRIME COMMISSION — $7,500 over 1y, 0.3% of budget
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.

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.

Servant FoundationKS19.5× affinity8 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Servant Foundation · John J Sullivan Jr Foundation John Houlehan & Mark Henke-Trustees · The Kansas City Royals Foundation · Commerce Bancshares Foundation · Greater Kansas City Community Foundation · Hunt Family Foundation · The Patterson Family Foundation · Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City · United Way of Greater Kansas City Inc · Je and le Mabee Foundation Inc · The Sunderland Foundation · United Way of Bergen County

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 Bicknell 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.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%your share of their income ↑0%6%13%19%25%share of the org’s income from governmentmedian 11%
  • City Year Inc11% of income from government
  • Shatterproof a Nonprofit Corporation2% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
5report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–25%
typical government reliance, FY2025

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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to The Bicknell Family Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Bicknell 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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 18 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

Generated from your IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2023, released 2023. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

More from the funding graph