Skip to content
Plinth
Foundation DossiersAlso receives grants — funding profile →
Plinth

· Public charity

The Burke Foundation Inc

The burke foundation seeks to make a difference in the lives of youth by investing in creative, well-conceived and cost-effective educational activities that enhance and improve (a) the character, quality, and access to education; (b) the personal, social, and intellectual development of children and youth; or (c) the educational and…

$6.1M
Granted FY2025still arriving
11
Grants FY2025still arriving
1
States reached
$1.7M
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your edgeRead
04Your fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
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 FY2017–2025.

Education$36MYouth Development$7.7MArts & Culture$7.4MEnvironment$4.6MHuman Services$780kRecreation & Sports$500kHealth$255kPhilanthropy$100kOther$0
02FY2025 · 11 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2025

  • $50k–250k4 grants · $520k
  • $250k+7 grants · $5.6M
$450,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$122M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY$1,672,866
MOUNT MARY UNIVERSITY$1,204,946
URBAN ECOLOGY CENTER$1,000,000
MILWAUKEE PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION INCORPORATED$500,000
HISTORIC HAYMARKET MILWAUKEE INC$500,000
BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF DANE COUNTY$450,000
NOTRE DAME SCHOOL OF MILWAUKEE$250,000
FIRST STAGE CHILDREN'S THEATER$180,000
NATIVITY JESUIT ACADEMY$180,000
MILWAUKEE YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA$110,000
BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER MILWAUKEE$50,000
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:

Your human-services grants (FY19–23, $1.3M) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, 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.

area typical 12%NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE OF MILWAUKEE: $50k → 17%ST ANN CENTER FOR INTERGENERATIONAL CARE: $350k → 17%UNITED COMMUNITY CENTER: $500k → 17%VOCES DE LA FRONTERA: $75k → 17%UNITED COMMUNITY CENTER: $5k → 17%SILVER SPRING NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER: $120k → 17%SILVER SPRING NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER: $110k → 17%SILVER SPRING NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER: $65k → 17%SILVER SPRING NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER: $5k → 17%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
repeat funding

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.

96%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$54M · 26 repeat orgs$2.2M to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +21% since the first grant, against +16% for the ones you funded once.

26 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2025, 16 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

26
15

Total granted

$54M
$1.7M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+21%
+16%

Still filing today

77%
80%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $500k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
EducationArts & CultureHuman ServicesYouth DevelopmentPhilanthropyEnvironmentOther

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

  • MU
    Marquette University
    9× · 2017–2025 · $11M · revenue +46%
  • MOUNT MARY UNIVERSITY INC
    9× · 2017–2025 · $11M · revenue +13%
  • BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF DANE COUNTY INC
    9× · 2017–2025 · $5.4M · revenue +85%

Funded once

  • MILWAUKEE PUBLIC MUSEUM INC
    one grant, 2024 · $500k · revenue +9%
  • ST ANN CENTER FOR INTERGENERATIONAL CARE
    one grant, 2019 · $350k · revenue +13%
  • MM
    MILWAUKEE MATH AND SCIENCE ACADEMY INC
    one grant, 2019 · $250k · revenue +12%

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

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
The University School of Milwaukee Corporation

University school of milwaukee cultivates excellence in learning, leadership, and citizenship for prekindergarten through 12th grade students. students are engaged, known, and valued within our passionate independent school community…

Education
2
Central City Cyberschool of Milwaukee Inc

A charter school providing motivation to inner city children to promote a successful future

Education
3
Milwaukee Jewish Day School Inc

Where academic excellence and jewish values prepare children for a lifetime of success, leadership and engagement with the world.

—
4
Michigan Science Center

The mission of the michigan science center is to inspire curious minds of all ages to discover, explore and appreciate science, technology, engineering and math in a creative, dynamic learning environment.

Education
5
Downtown Montessori Academy Inc

To create a montessori environment where the child's early experiences with learning will help him or her to become a self-confident, competent, cooperative adult.

Education
6
Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design Inc

The milwaukee institute of art and design's mission is to ignite curious minds through art, design and service. we value courage to seek our own path, integrity to pursue our lives and work with meaning, kindness to thoughtfully engage…

—
7
Milwaukee School of Engineering

Milwaukee school of engineering (msoe) is a nonprofit, nonsectarian university providing a balanced education at the undergraduate and graduate level in the disciplines of engineering business, mathematics, and nursing. (see schedule o)…

Education
8
One City Schools Inc

Our mission is to seed a new model of public education that ensures young children are on track to succeed in a college or career preparatory program from birth through high school graduation.

Human Services
9
Milwaukee Community Service Corps Inc

The milwaukee community service corps (mcsc) is a non-profit vocational training organization providing employment, education and life skills to training youth adults and unemployed and underemployed of milwaukee, wisconsin.

Employment
10
Nonprofit Center of Milwaukee Inc

To promote interests and effectiveness of the nonprofit sector through strengthening organizational capacity, expanding volunteerism and encouraging collaboration.

—
11
The Uwm Foundation Inc

The mission of the uwm foundation, inc. is to support the educational, literary, and scientific endeavors of the university of wisconsin-milwaukee by receiving, managing, and distributing gifts to benefit the university's students,…

Education
12
Milwaukee Public Schools Admin and Supervisors Council Inc

Milwaukee public school administrators and supervisors council inc. was formed in 1971 to serve as the exclusive bargaining agent for its membership, via collection of dues as the primary source of revenue.

—

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is City Forward Collective Inc and the most unlike its peers is Marquette University. 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 39 years old; the field is 22. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number18%0%<5yr12%3%5–10yr17%6%10–20yr18%33%20–35yr15%14%35–55yr20%44%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value18%0%<5yr12%1%5–10yr17%3%10–20yr18%41%20–35yr15%7%35–55yr20%49%55yr+

The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
0.0%0/43
the rest of the field
12%
710/5,745

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.

04the grantee network

35 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. 35 of the 43 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.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
5
Early backer (in before they grew)
34/35
Grantees still filing
25/35
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

MOUNT MARY UNIVERSITY INC — $11,054,444 · OtherMOUNT MARY UNIVERSITY INCNATIVITY JESUIT ACADEMY INC — $3,360,000 · OtherNATIVITY JESUIT ACADEMY INCUNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN — $1,404,731 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF WISCONSINNOTRE DAME SCHOOL OF MILWAUKEE INC — $1,250,000 · OtherNOTRE DAME SCHOOL OF MILWAUKEE INCMILWAUKEE YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC — $1,210,000 · OtherMILWAUKEE YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC+11 more — $2,019,575 · Other+11 moreMarquette University — $11,163,448 · EducationMarquette UniversityTHE MILWAUKEE SCIENCE EDUCATION CONSORTIUM INC — $1,390,000 · EducationTHE MILWAUKEE SCIENCE EDUCATION…ALVERNO COLLEGE — $1,043,157 · EducationALVERNO COLLEGECARMEN HIGH SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY INC — $850,000 · EducationCARMEN HIGH SCHOOL OF SCIENCE A…Pearls for Teen Girls Inc — $596,000 · Education+4 more — $696,450 · EducationBOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF DANE COUNTY INC — $5,412,500 · Youth DevelopmentBOYS AND GIRL…BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER MILWAUKEE INC — $890,000 · Youth DevelopmentBOYS AND GIRL…RUNNING REBELS COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION INC — $350,000 · Youth DevelopmentMILWAUKEE YOUTH ARTS CENTER INC — $3,070,775 · Arts & CultureMILWAUKEE YO…FIRST STAGE MILWAUKEE — $2,122,700 · Arts & CultureFIRST STAGE …MILWAUKEE PUBLIC MUSEUM INC — $500,000 · Arts & CultureMILWAUKEE PU…Historic Haymarket Milwaukee Inc — $500,000 · Arts & CultureHistoric Hay…+1 more — $10,000 · Arts & CultureURBAN ECOLOGY CENTER INC — $4,581,000 · EnvironmentURBAN ECO…MILWAUKEE PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION — $1,300,000 · PhilanthropyGREATER MILWAUKEE FOUNDATION INC — $630,000 · Philanthropy+1 more — $5,000 · PhilanthropyUNITED COMMUNITY CENTER INC — $505,000 · Human ServicesST ANN CENTER FOR INTERGENERATIONAL CARE — $350,000 · Human ServicesSILVER SPRING NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER INC — $300,000 · Human ServicesVOCES DE LA FRONTERA INC — $75,000 · Human ServicesNEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE OF MILWAUKEE INC — $50,000 · Human ServicesPENFIELD CHILDREN'S CENTER INC — $255,000 · Health
Other$20,298,750Education$15,739,055Youth Development$6,652,500Arts & Culture$6,203,475Environment$4,581,000Philanthropy$1,935,000Human Services$1,280,000Health$255,000

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 budgetMarquette University — $11,163,448 over 9y, 0.2% of budgetMOUNT MARY UNIVERSITY INC — $11,054,444 over 9y, 3.5% of budgetBOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF DANE COUNTY INC — $5,412,500 over 9y, 16% of budgetURBAN ECOLOGY CENTER INC — $4,581,000 over 9y, 18% of budgetMILWAUKEE YOUTH ARTS CENTER INC — $3,070,775 over 4y, 77% of budgetFIRST STAGE MILWAUKEE — $2,122,700 over 9y, 11% of budgetTHE MILWAUKEE SCIENCE EDUCATION CONSORTIUM INC — $1,390,000 over 3y, 4.5% of budgetMILWAUKEE PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION — $1,300,000 over 3y, 20% of budgetMILWAUKEE YOUTH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC — $1,210,000 over 8y, 7.2% of budgetALVERNO COLLEGE — $1,043,157 over 6y, 0.5% of budgetBOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER MILWAUKEE INC — $890,000 over 9y, 0.5% of budgetCARMEN HIGH SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY INC — $850,000 over 2y, 2.7% of budgetGREATER MILWAUKEE FOUNDATION INC — $630,000 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetPearls for Teen Girls Inc — $596,000 over 6y, 9.1% of budgetUNITED COMMUNITY CENTER INC — $505,000 over 2y, 1.4% of budgetMILWAUKEE PUBLIC MUSEUM INC — $500,000 over 1y, 4.2% of budgetHistoric Haymarket Milwaukee Inc — $500,000 over 1y, 0.7% of budgetST ANN CENTER FOR INTERGENERATIONAL CARE — $350,000 over 1y, 3.6% of budgetRUNNING REBELS COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION INC — $350,000 over 2y, 3.9% of budgetSILVER SPRING NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER INC — $300,000 over 4y, 4.3% of budgetCITY FORWARD COLLECTIVE INC — $286,450 over 3y, 3.5% of budgetPENFIELD CHILDREN'S CENTER INC — $255,000 over 2y, 3.6% of budgetCHILDREN'S OUTING ASSOCIATION — $250,000 over 2y, 1.6% of budgetMILWAUKEE MATH AND SCIENCE ACADEMY INC — $250,000 over 1y, 7.8% of budgetSCHOOLS THAT CAN MILWAUKEE INC — $150,000 over 2y, 5.2% of budgetCOLLEGE POSSIBLE INC — $150,000 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetVOCES DE LA FRONTERA INC — $75,000 over 1y, 2.5% of budgetNEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE OF MILWAUKEE INC — $50,000 over 1y, 1.9% of budgetLAD LAKE INC — $14,575 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetMALAIKA EARLY LEARNING CENTER — $10,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetUNITED PERFORMING ARTS FUND INC — $10,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetCITY YEAR INC — $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetMILWAUKEE PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION INC — $5,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetWISCONSIN REGIONAL TRAINING PARTNERSHIP — $5,000 over 1y, 0.1% 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.

Greater Milwaukee Fou…Herbert H Kohl Charit…United Way of Greater…Ralph Evinrude Founda…Green Bay Packers Fou…Baird Foundation IncGardner FoundationEvan & Marion Helfaer…Northwestern Mutual L…Joseph and Vera Zilbe…Anon Charitable TrustHarley-Davidson Found…
Greater Milwaukee Foundation IncWI53.9× affinity25 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Greater Milwaukee Foundation Inc · Herbert H Kohl Charities Inc · United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County Inc · Ralph Evinrude Foundation Inc · Green Bay Packers Foundation · Baird Foundation Inc · Gardner Foundation · Evan & Marion Helfaer Foundation · Northwestern Mutual Life Foundation Inc · Joseph and Vera Zilber Family Foundation Inc · Anon Charitable Trust · Harley-Davidson Foundation 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 Burke Foundation Inc 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
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%1%5%11%20%your share of their income ↑0%19%38%56%75%share of the org’s income from government →median 11%
  • City Year Inc — 11% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
16report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%
typical government reliance, FY20–25

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 Burke Foundation Inc?

Find your warmest path to The Burke Foundation Inc 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 43 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 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions
grants reported with no recipient in the public record
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
The endowment market
who holds foundation money, and what just moved
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home