· Private foundation
The Don & Jean Wagner Charitable Foundation
Its FY2024 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 clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k23 grants · $81k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $81k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $54k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE KANSAS CITY ZOO | $54,250 |
| POLICE FOUNDATION OF KANSAS CITY | $34,500 |
| STARLIGHT THEATER | $22,600 |
| ALS ASSOCIATION | $13,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| TRUMAN LIBRARY INSTITUTE | $9,985 |
| ROYALS CHARITIES | $7,850 |
| POWER FOR PARKINSON'S | $6,200 |
| UMKC FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| OPERATION BREAKTHROUGH | $5,000 |
| ST ANN CATHOLIC SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| ST PAUL'S EPISCOPAL DAY SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| WAYSIDE WAIFS | $5,000 |
| BOTAR | $5,000 |
| FOLLY THEATER | $4,660 |
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 (FY18–24, $28k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 82% 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 +43% since the first grant, against +7% for the ones you funded once.
38 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2024, 17 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 81% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $41k 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
- FOFRIENDS OF THE ZOO INC OF KANSAS CITY MISSOURI C/O LINDA FALK4× · 2018–2024 · $288k · revenue +95%
- PFPOLICE FOUNDATION OF KANSAS CITY5× · 2018–2024 · $180k · revenue +235%
- UFUMKC FOUNDATION5× · 2018–2024 · $126k · revenue +308%
Funded once
- TMTRUMAN MEDICAL CENTER INCORPORATEDgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $15k · revenue +51%
- SASt Ann Catholic Churchone grant, 2022 · $5k
- CUCity Union Missionone grant, 2023 · $5k · revenue -4%
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.
Park university's mission is to transform lives through accessible, student-centered, quality higher education.
Kansas wesleyan university is a liberal arts college that promotes and integrates academic excellence, spiritual development, personal well-being, and social responsibility.
Leading the way to the best kc region by convening innovative leaders, collaborating with like-minded organizations, advocating for positive change, and helping small businesses grow.
We build lifelong relationships that strengthen the university of kansas and the legacy of excellence embodied by its students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends.
Columbia college improves lives by providing quality education to both traditional and nontraditional students, helping them achieve their true potential.
The mission of the foundation is to improve the health and well-being of the communities served by jefferson hospital through engagement, community-driven research and grantmaking. there are three grantmaking priorities focused on the…
Provides innovative education in a dynamic urban setting. dedicated to academic excellence and community engagement,we prepare students of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skill,and experience to lead meaningful lives as informed…
The memorial unions function as a concessionaire to the university of kansas for the purpose of operating various enterprises within the kansas union building, the burge union, the debruce center, residential dining halls, and other…
The mission of KCAI is to educate artists and designers while honoring the distinct journeys of students. We forge a vibrant community that equips them to become leaders who leverage the creative process to transform the future.
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
To inspire and engage through the beauty, power and passion of dance
The mission of the kansas academy of family physicians is to empower and cultivate kansas family physicians to: serve as trusted and innovative leaders champion a diverse, sustainable and inclusive workforce advocate and collaborate for…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Umkc Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Srq Healing Project Inc. 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 47 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
41 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. 41 of the 58 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 FRIENDS OF THE ZOO INC OF KANSAS CITY MISSOURI C/O LINDA FALK ↗
- Who funds POLICE FOUNDATION OF KANSAS CITY ↗
- Who funds UMKC FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THOMAS S WATSON SUPPORTING FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UMKC TRUSTEES ↗
- Who funds THE HARRY S TRUMAN LIBRARY INSTITUTE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS ↗
- Who funds GREENLIGHT FUND INC ↗
- Who funds PERFORMING ARTS FOUNDATION OF KANSAS CITY ↗
- Who funds THE KANSAS CITY ROYALS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PLAZA ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds WAYSIDE WAIFS INC ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds TRUMAN MEDICAL CENTER INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds AMYOTROPHIC LATERAL SCLEROSIS MN MINNESOTANORTH DAKOTASOUTH DAKOTA ↗
- Who funds PEMBROKE HILL SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THE RABBIT HOLE KC ↗
- Who funds REDA EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SRQ HEALING PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds Saint Lukes Foundation ↗
- Who funds KANSAS CITY GIRLS PREPARATORY ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds ROSE BROOKS CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds POWER FOR PARKINSONS ↗
- Who funds City Union Mission ↗
- Who funds OPERATION BREAKTHROUGH INC ↗
- Who funds North American Family Institute Inc ↗
- Who funds BOYS CLUB OF GREATER KANSAS CITY ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL WWI MUSEUM AND MEMORIAL ↗
- Who funds LEAD TO READ 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: Greater Kansas City Community Foundation · Marion and Henry Bloch Family Foundation · Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation · The Francis Family Foundation · William T Kemper Foundation Commerce Bank Trustee · The H & R Block Foundation · The Torosian Foundation · Muriel McBrien Kauffman Family Foundation · Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City · The Atterbury Family Foundation · Merriman Foundation · Ralph L Smith Foundation 13952400
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 Don & Jean Wagner Charitable 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.
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.
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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.