· Private foundation
The Circle Fund
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
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.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k6 grants · $17k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $30k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MARY QUEEN OF PEACE | $20,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| THE SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION OF ST LOUIS | $5,000 |
| ST FRANCIS CABRINI | $5,000 |
| CATHOLIC CHARITIES | $2,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,500 |
| MARY CULVER HOME | $1,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $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 (FY18–18, $2k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
7 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down; 3 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, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $7k 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
- MMMARIAN MIDDLE SCHOOL2× · 2018–2024 · $116k · revenue +51%
- MQMARY QUEEN OF PEACE CATHOLIC CHURCH3× · 2023–2025 · $42k
- IGIndividual grant recipient3× · 2023–2025 · $35k
Funded once
- SLST LOUIS AREA FOOD BANK INCone grant, 2017 · $7k · revenue +17%
SANIBEL-CAPTIVA CONSERVATION FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $5k · revenue +143%- IGIndividual grant recipientone 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.
St. marys university, as a catholic marianist university, fosters the formation of people in faith and educates leaders for the common good through community, integrated liberal arts and professional education, and academic excellence.
The mission of the southeast missouri food bank is to promote food recovery; acquire and distribute food and household products; and provide community leadership and education on issues of hunger and poverty in an effort to alleviate…
The food bank for central & northeast missouri is a regional disaster and hunger relief network that acquires and distributes millions of meals each year to help neighbors get the food they need to thrive. (continued on schedule o)the…
Through our exceptional health care services, we reveal the health presence of god.
Avila university, a catholic university sponsored by saint joseph educational ministries, a ministerial public juridic person of the catholic church (sjem), is a values-based community of learning providing liberal arts, professional,…
The corporation of saint mary's college, notre dame (saint mary's) is a catholic, residential, women's, liberal arts college offering undergraduate degrees and co-educational graduate programs. (continued in schedule o)
Mount mary university, an urban catholic university for women sponsored by the school sisters of notre dame, provides an environment for the development of the whole person. the university encourages leadership, integrity, and a deep sense…
Marian university is a catholic applied liberal arts community that welcomes diverse spiritual traditions sponsored by the congregation of sisters of st agnes. marian university engages students in the education of the whole person. we…
To promote the possibilities of charitable giving, helping charitable citizens understand how they can effectively provide for the community they love and the causes they care deeply about.
To bring the healing, help, and hope of jesus christ to those in need with a compassionate, caring presence. our values are dignity, hospitality, service, excellence, compassion, and joy.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is St Louis Area Food Bank Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Mary Culver Home. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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. 9 of the 22 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 MARIAN MIDDLE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds ST LOUIS AREA FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds THE SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION OF ST LOUIS ↗
- Who funds SANIBEL-CAPTIVA CONSERVATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FISH OF SANIBEL-CAPTIVA INC ↗
- Who funds THE MARY CULVER HOME ↗
- Who funds Caritas Connections Inc ↗
- Who funds JUNIOR GOLF FOUNDATION OF GREATER ST LOUIS ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA 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: Moneta Group Charitable Foundation · St Louis Community Foundation · St Louis Community Foundation Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Circle 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.
- Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation — 4% 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 Circle Fund?
Find your warmest path to The Circle Fund 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.