· Public charity
The Buddy Fund
To serve local at-risk youth in partnership with dedicated schools, recreation, and youth organizations by providing new sports and recreation equipment to create opportunities for development of their physical and mental health, confidence and character, teamwork and respect for others, and academic expectations and personal…
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 1 grants below total $6,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $229,872 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $223,872 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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LOU FUSZ ATHLETICS | $6,000 |
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 (FY20–20, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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 +27% since the first grant, against +23% for the ones you funded once.
4 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2023, 3 since wound down.
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 FY2023, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- LFLOU FUSZ SOCCER CLUB3× · 2022–2024 · $12k · revenue +27%
- IBIsaac Bruce Foundation2× · 2017–2018 · $5k · revenue +243%
- BHBOYS HOPE GIRLS HOPE2× · 2019–2020 · $4k · revenue -13%
Funded once
- ECEvangelical Children's Homegraduated3× · 2018–2020 · $3k · revenue +31%
- FIFOX ICE HOCKEY CLUBone grant, 2020 · $1k · revenue +23%
- CCCHILD CENTER-MARYGROVE2× · 2019–2020 · $1k · revenue -36%
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.
To enable all young people, especially those who need them most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens.
To provide soccer leagues to promote youth soccer in the st louis area
The mission of the boys & girls clubs of west central missouri is to inspire and enable all young people to realize their full potential as caring and productive citizens.
The organization promotes the personal development of boys and girls ages 5-18, with special concern for the disadvantaged by providing services that build self-esteem, values and skills during critical periods of growth.
Providing day care services to infants and children of low income families in northern st. louis county, missouri
Provide youth hockey players valuable life skills with training, competition and team building experiences. while promoting self esteem, physical healthy habits
To serve children, youth and families in east st. louis, illinois, with programs that prepare them for successful futures academically, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
To bring together community and private sector resources to prepare low income high school students attending public schools in the city of st. louis for the future through economic opportunities and education.
To inspire and enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to realize their full potential as productive, responsible and caring citizens
To enable all young people, especially those who need us most, to reach their full potential as productive, caring, responsible citizens. club membership is open to all kids ages 6-18.
Preparing youth to be successful beyond high shcool, while intoducing them to the vast gold community.
Children First brings the community together to create better outcomes so that every young person in St. Louis Park can thrive. We convene cross-sector initiatives working to change the odds for our children and families.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Boys and Girls Club of St Charles County and the most unlike its peers is Isaac Bruce Foundation. 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 35 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 14% of your grantees by number, and just 11% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
37 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover.
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.
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: St Louis Community Foundation Inc · United Way of Greater St Louis Inc · Commerce Bancshares Foundation · Employees Community Fund of the Boeing Company · Youthbridge Community Foundation · World Wide Technology Foundation · Norman J Stupp Foundation · Pott Foundation · St Louis Community Foundation · Pecha Family Foundation · Berges Family Foundation · Jordan Mary R & Ettie a Charitable
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 Buddy 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 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.