· Private foundation
The Edward H Butler Foundation
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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k5 grants · $25k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $145k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $100k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ELMWOOD FRANKLIN SCHOOL | $50,000 |
| ONE SYMPHONY CIRCLE | $50,000 |
| BUFFALO CENTER FOR ARTS & TECHNOLOGY | $40,000 |
| WATER COMPASS | $30,000 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF BUFFALO | $15,000 |
| ASSEMBLY HOUSE 150 | $10,000 |
| GIGI'S PLAYHOUSE | $10,000 |
| WEST SIDE COMMUNITY SERVICES | $10,000 |
| GRASSROOTS GARDEN WNY | $10,000 |
| LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD | $10,000 |
| THE TOOL LIBRARY | $10,000 |
| SPCA OF ERIE COUNTY | $5,000 |
| THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF BUFFALO FOUNDATION INC | $5,000 |
| 716 SQUASH INC | $5,000 |
| OLD FORGE VOLUNTEER AMBULANCE CORPS | $5,000 |
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 (FY24–24, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, 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.
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.
32 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2025, 19 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, 78% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $60k 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
- ESELMWOOD-FRANKLIN SCHOOL INC6× · 2020–2025 · $266k · revenue +28%
- WSWEST SIDE COMMUNITY SERVICES INC4× · 2022–2025 · $47k · revenue +128%
- BTBUFFALO THERAPEUTIC RIDING CENTER INC2× · 2023–2024 · $31k · revenue +21%
Funded once
- EMEXPLORE & MORE A CHILDREN'S MUSEUMgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $34k · revenue +37%
- BABUFFALO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE CHARTER SCHOOLgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $11k · revenue +128%
- TLTHE LIBRARY OF AMERICAN LANDSCAPE HISTORY INCone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue -33%
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.
Rochester academy of science charter school (the school) is a not-for-profit education corporation that operates kindergarten through 12th grades and is dedicated to providing quality education to a diverse body of students in the…
Building community; creating connections; saving wildlife through a collaboration for change: the buffalo zoo will be a center of conservation excellence, providing leadership to secure a future where wildlife thrives. we embody our…
The organization was formed for the specific purpose of operating, maintaining and protecting parks and public spaces in the city of buffalo, new york, including but not limited to parks and public spaces owned or operated by the city of…
The lipsey architecture center buffalo (the center) explores excellence in architecture and city planning as demonstrated by buffalo's outstanding architectural heritage. located in the richardson olmstead complex, the center will provide…
With unrelenting determination and a commitment to excellence, buffalo collegiate charter school educated students in grades 4 through 12 to graduate from the college of their choice and serve as our next generation of leaders. the…
The buffalo maritime center's mission is to provide everyone the opportunity to experience the hoy of being on the water, to learn maritime history, and to achieve higher levels of craftmanship.
Establish and operate a charter school to prepare our diverse community of students to succeed academically and professionally regardless of background and circumstance.
Create new public golf and recreation amenities in the city of buffalo; assist in the restoration of frederick law olmsted's south park arboretum; and construct a new education center for underserved, minority youth.
Preservation, protection and restoration of the buffalo new york lighthouses and to maintain and develop the area surrounding them in accordance with their historical significance.
To acquire, remediate, and steward lands along wny's waterfronts prioritizing public access.
To provide quality, affordable child care for the families of students, faculty and staff of the college, as well as families of other new york state employees and community members.
The Buffalo Institiute for Contemporary Art (Bica) is a art and educational project for Buffalo, NY. Through Innovative exhibitions, cross-discipplinary skills-based programming, and arts ecology development, bica mission is to break down…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Richardson Center Corporation and the most unlike its peers is Water Compass 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 34 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 9% 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.
33 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. 33 of the 46 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 ELMWOOD-FRANKLIN SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds One Symphony Circle Inc ↗
- Who funds WATER COMPASS INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF BUFFALO INC ↗
- Who funds WEST SIDE COMMUNITY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds EXPLORE & MORE A CHILDREN'S MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO THERAPEUTIC RIDING CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds 716 Squash Inc ↗
- Who funds ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF BUFFALO FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ADIRONDACK HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds ASSEMBLY HOUSE 150 INC ↗
- Who funds The Tool Library Inc ↗
- Who funds ROSWELL PARK ALLIANCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OLD FORGE VOLUNTEER AMBULANCE CORPS INC ↗
- Who funds HAUPTMAN-WOODWARD MEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO SOCIETY OF NATURAL SCIENCES ↗
- Who funds RICHARDSON CENTER CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO & ERIE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds LUPUS FOUNDATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds TOWN OF WEBB HEALTH CENTER FUND INC ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO ACADEMY OF SCIENCE CHARTER SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THE LIBRARY OF AMERICAN LANDSCAPE HISTORY INC ↗
- Who funds LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD INC ↗
- Who funds THE SUMMIT CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CARDIGAN MOUNTAIN SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds DANCEABILITY INC ↗
- Who funds CITY MISSION SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds WEST SIDE ROWING CLUB INCORPORATED OF THE CITY OF BUFFALO ↗
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: Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo Inc · The Baird Foundation · The John R Oishei Foundation · Cullen Foundation · Children's Foundation of Erie County Inc · First Niagara Foundation · Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies Inc · The Osc Charitable Foundation · The Frank G Raichle Foundation · James H Cummings Foundation Inc · Rich Family Foundation · Mulroy Family 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 Edward H Butler 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Edward H Butler Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Edward H Butler 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.