· Private foundation
The Ellen and Jack Kessler Family Foundation C/O Jj Kessler
Its FY2023 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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 63% of THE ELLEN AND JACK KESSLER FAMILY FOUNDATION C/O JJ KESSLER’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- Under $10k18 grants · $28k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $123k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE CARNEGIE MUSEUMS OF ART | $46,000 |
| UNITED JEWISH FEDERATION - PITTSBURGH | $25,000 |
| UNITED WAY | $20,000 |
| THE CARNEGIE MUSEUMS OF PITTSBURGH | $12,000 |
| THE PITTSBURGH PROMISE | $10,000 |
| PITTSBURGH GLASS CENTER | $10,000 |
| JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF GREATER PITTSBURGH | $6,800 |
| MAKE THE ROAD NEW YORK | $5,000 |
| THE FRIENDSHIP CIRCLE | $2,500 |
| SQUIRREL HILL URBAN COALITION | $2,500 |
| J STREET PAC | $1,800 |
| ANDY WARHOL MUSEUM | $1,500 |
| MATTRESS FACTORY | $1,000 |
| JEWISH ASSOCIATION ON AGING | $1,000 |
| QUANTUM THEATRE | $1,000 |
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 (FY18–23, $103k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
26 repeat relationships — 18 still active in FY2023, 8 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (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 FY2023, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6k 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
- CICARNEGIE INSTITUTE6× · 2018–2023 · $105k · revenue +28%
- YMYOUNG MEN AND WOMEN'S HEBREW ASSOCIATION AND IRENE KAUFMANN CENT5× · 2018–2023 · $100k · revenue +24%
- PGPITTSBURGH GLASS CENTER INC4× · 2020–2023 · $28k · revenue +97%
Funded once
- VOVIOLINS OF HOPE GREATER PITTSBURGHone grant, 2022 · $5k
- CMCarnegie Mellon Universitygraduatedone grant, 2019 · $5k · revenue +52%
- MOMEANINGS OF OCTOBER 27THone grant, 2021 · $5k
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.
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…
We connect the people and places of philadelphia through art and partnership. the organization is a free-standing platform that endeavors to show forward-thinking, high-quality contemporary visual and performance art in the city. the…
Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…
The trustees of the university of pennsylvania (the "university") sees itself as having a public service mission. in such regard, the university aims to provide a rich and diverse educational environment for its students; to pioneer…
The corporation advances excellence in the arts, including studio, media, and creative writing. to achieve its mission, the corporation provides equipment and facilities for individual artists, conducts educational programs, and stimulates…
Presenting diverse, quality performing & visual art; managing arts facilities; advancing arts education; and creating & developing pittsburgh's cultural district as a destination for entertainment, business, and urban living, thus…
To create a vibrant, responsible, and sustainable film and digital media sector in southwestern pennsylvania.
To support education and research at college, university, and research libraries.
To provide a means for sharing resources and information among members, engage in joint projects, and offer a common voice on educational matters.
By sharing resources and fostering meaningful relationships that strengthen the region's creative community, the greater pittsburgh arts council builds a more resourced, connected, and informed arts sector, empowering artists and arts…
The zoological society of pittsburgh is dedicated to being a leader in, and significant contributor to, the conservation of endangered and threatened species. the society provides an enjoyable family experience that fosters understanding,…
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is University of Pittsburgh and the most unlike its peers is Blood Cancer United 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 45 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% 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 10% 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.
31 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. 31 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 CARNEGIE INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN'S HEBREW ASSOCIATION AND IRENE KAUFMANN CENT ↗
- Who funds PITTSBURGH GLASS CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE PITTSBURGH PROMISE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BLOOD CANCER UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds Make the Road New York ↗
- Who funds ART21 INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY DAY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Carnegie Mellon University ↗
- Who funds PERSAD CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF WESTERN PA INC ↗
- Who funds ART CREATES US INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH ASSOCIATION ON AGING ↗
- Who funds Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition ↗
- Who funds THE MATTRESS FACTORY LTD ↗
- Who funds FAMILYAID BOSTON INC ↗
- Who funds QUANTUM THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds NEW ISRAEL FUND ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN COUNCIL ON GERMANY INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ↗
- Who funds THE SOCIETY FOR ART IN CRAFTS ↗
- Who funds WESTMORELAND MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART ↗
- Who funds PITTSBURGH BALLET THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds PITTSBURGH ARTS & LECTURES INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PITTSBURGH FOUNDATION ↗
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: Hillman Family Foundations · The Fine Foundation · The Grable Foundation · The Heinz Endowments · The Benter Foundation · Giant Eagle Foundation · The Jack Buncher Foundation · The Pittsburgh Foundation · Richard King Mellon Foundation · The Buhl Foundation · McKinney Charitable Foundation · Arts Equity & Education Fund
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 Ellen and Jack Kessler Family Foundation C/O Jj Kessler 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.
- Familyaid Boston Inc — 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 Ellen and Jack Kessler Family Foundation C/O Jj Kessler?
Find your warmest path to The Ellen and Jack Kessler Family Foundation C/O Jj Kessler 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.