· Private foundation
The Estelle S and Robert a Long Ellis Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k9 grants · $50k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $120k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $175k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SPENCER MUSEUM OF ART-KU ENDOWMENT | $75,000 |
| KANSAS CITY BALLET | $50,000 |
| NATIONAL WWI MUSEUM AND MEMORIAL | $50,000 |
| NATIONAL TOY AND MINIATURE MUSEUM | $25,000 |
| KANSAS SCHOOL OF CLASSICAL BALLET | $15,000 |
| POWELL GARDENS | $10,000 |
| PARK UNIVERSITY | $10,000 |
| LYRIC OPERA | $10,000 |
| UNICORN THEATRE | $10,000 |
| SYNERGY SERVICES | $10,000 |
| GILDA'S CLUB KANSAS CITY | $10,000 |
| INDEPENDENCE BOULEVARD CHRISTIAN CHURCH | $10,000 |
| KANSAS CITY YOUNG AUDIENCES | $10,000 |
| YOUTH SYMPHANY OF KANSAS CITY | $7,500 |
| SPINNING TREE THEATRE | $7,500 |
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 (FY20–24, $30k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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.
33 repeat relationships — 18 still active in FY2024, 15 since wound down; 4 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, 87% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $45k 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
- THTHE HARRY S TRUMAN LIBRARY INSTITUTE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS4× · 2019–2022 · $240k · revenue +9%
- NWNATIONAL WWI MUSEUM AND MEMORIAL3× · 2022–2024 · $100k · revenue +130%
- KCKANSAS CITY ACTORS THEATRE INC7× · 2017–2023 · $90k · revenue +7%
Funded once
- NMNATIONAL MUSEUM OF TOYS AND MINIATURESone grant, 2022 · $50k · revenue +10%
- NMNELSON-ATKINS MUSEUM OF ARTone grant, 2018 · $35k
- RUROCKHURST UNIVERSITYone grant, 2022 · $25k · revenue -10%
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.
The kansas city atrtists coalition is a nonprofit organization that promotes visual arts awareness
The mission of The Black Repertory Theatre of Kansas City is to educate and inspire our community by presenting and promoting appreciation for African-American culture through our stories.
The performance of fine classical music in both public and education outreach program concerts, utilizing talented local musicians, and frequently in partnership with other arts and community organizations.
Kansas City Public Theatre provides access to the arts through year-round theatre entertainment free of charge to the public This mission is carried out in two activities first by producing aesthetically and ideologically diverse new works…
To enrich the lives of everyone in our community through extraordinary and diverse performing arts experiences. these experiences are provided through programs, customer service, and education.(continued on schedule o)programs: showcase a…
The mission of the arts council of metropolitan kansas city (dba artskc - regional arts council) is to advance lives through the arts. it does this through key initiatives that support our work: we bring together people, resources and…
Its mission is to perform great performances for greater audiences. the kansas city symphony will achieve this mission by: - developing an uncompromising performance standard. - advancing the profile and value of the orchestra locally,…
The Kansas City Jazz Orchestra is dedicated to promoting the rich culture of Kansas City through performance and education. We strive to be a leading voice, ensuring that Kansas City's influential jazz tradition continues to thrive and…
To inspire, entertain and open minds by creating transformative theatre experiences for all.
Our mission is to attract diverse people, nuture artists, and strengthen kansas city economically by producing cultural, education, accessible, and affordable events that connect audiences, artists, businesses, and civic organizations. the…
Connecting our community through live arts experiences that entertain, inspire, and engage
Music/arts institute, greater kansas city's community school of performing arts, teaches students, young and old alike, to embrace beauty and professionalism in the arts. shaping tomorrow's performers is the task to which the distinguished…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Kansas City Young Audiences Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Harry S Truman Library Institute National and International Affairs. 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 33 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) — 6% of your grantees by number, and just 3% 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.
34 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. 34 of the 52 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 KANSAS CITY BALLET ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE HARRY S TRUMAN LIBRARY INSTITUTE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS ↗
- Who funds KANSAS CITY YOUNG AUDIENCES INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL WWI MUSEUM AND MEMORIAL ↗
- Who funds KANSAS CITY ACTORS THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds KANSAS SCHOOL OF CLASSICAL BALLET INC ↗
- Who funds PARK UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds UNICORN THEATRE ↗
- Who funds LYRIC OPERA OF KANSAS CITY INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL MUSEUM OF TOYS AND MINIATURES ↗
- Who funds POWELL GARDENS INC ↗
- Who funds HEART OF AMERICA SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds ROCKHURST UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds UNITED INNER CITY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds CITY OF FOUNTAINS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BACH ARIA SOLOISTS INC ↗
- Who funds City In Motion Dance Theater City In Motion Dance Theater ↗
- Who funds SPINNING TREE THEATRE ↗
- Who funds GILDA'S CLUB KANSAS CITY ↗
- Who funds Arts Engagement Foundation of Kansas City ↗
- Who funds INTERURBAN ARTHOUSE ↗
- Who funds SYNERGY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS CLUB OF GREATER KANSAS CITY ↗
- Who funds METROPOLITAN ENSEMBLE THEATRE ↗
- Who funds YOUTH CHORUS OF KANSAS CITY 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: The Francis Family Foundation · Greater Kansas City Community Foundation · Muriel McBrien Kauffman Family Foundation · Richard J Stern Foundation for the Arts Commerce Bank Trustee · Jewish Community Foundation of Greater Kansas City · R a Long Foundation 600 Plaza West Bldg · Metropolitan Arts Council of Greater Kansas City · The H & R Block Foundation · Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation · William T Kemper Foundation Commerce Bank Trustee · The Sunderland Foundation · Copaken 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 Estelle S and Robert a Long Ellis 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
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Find your warmest path to The Estelle S and Robert a Long Ellis 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.