· Private foundation
The Isadore Foundation
Its FY2020 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
92% of The Isadore Foundation’s FY2020 grant dollars went to American Endowment Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2020 names 11 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2019, the last year The Isadore Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 7 organizations, $3k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2020.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| RED CABOOSE CHILD CARE CENTER | $1,000 |
| GROUNDSWELL CONSERVANCY | $200 |
| FOUNDATION FOR MADISON PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $200 |
| COMMUNITY SHARES OF WISCONSIN INC | $200 |
| GATES OF HEAVEN PRESERVATION FUND | $200 |
| MADISON VETERANS FOR PEACE | $150 |
| SIERRA CLUB | $100 |
| LUEKEMIA & LYMPHOMA SOCIETY - WISCONSIN CHAPTER | $100 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF DANE COUNTY | $100 |
| MADISON METROPOLITAN SCHOOL DISTRICT | $100 |
| CLEAN WISCONSIN | $100 |
| DANE COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY | $100 |
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 (FY17–20, $2k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +113% since the first grant, against +107% for the ones you funded once.
13 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2019, 5 since wound down; 16 grantees were first funded in FY2019 (too recent to call). Read against FY2019, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2020, 46% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- RCRed Caboose Child Care Center Inc2× · 2019–2020 · $2k · revenue +96%
- IAIRWIN A AND ROBERT D GOODMAN COMMUNITY CENTER INC2× · 2017–2018 · $1k · revenue +113%
- GCGROUNDSWELL CONSERVANCY INC4× · 2017–2020 · $1k · revenue +188%
Funded once
- UOUniversity of Wisconsin Athleticsone grant, 2017 · $2k
- RCRED CABOOSE CENTERone grant, 2018 · $1k
- PEProgressive Education Fundone grant, 2017 · $400
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.
We conduct impartial public policy research and analysis to drive informed debate and effective decision-making in the state of wisconsin.
Madison community foundation will engage greater madison in philanthropy to advance a more vibrant and equitable community.
Landmark conservancy is a nationally accredited, nonprofit conservation organization serving 20 counties across northwest wisconsin. their mission is to conserve wisconsin's natural legacy for everyone...forever.
Renew wisconsin leads and accelerates the transformation to wisconsin's renewable energy future through advocacy, education, and collaboration.
Midwest dairy works with others to give consumers an excellent dairy experience increasing sales, fostering innovation, and inspiring consumer confidence of dairy products and practices.
To protect wisconsin's lands, waters, and wildlife by providing funding, leading partnerships, and connecting all people with nature.
Gathering waters (wisconsin's alliance for land trusts) strengthens land trusts to protect wisconsin's special places and grow healthy, vibrant communities. the stronger the alliance between gathering waters' staff and board members, land…
Midwest environmental advocates is a nonprofit law center that combines the power of law with the resolve of communities facing environmental injustice to secure and protect the rights of all people to healthy water, land, and air.
Engage our community in supporting milwaukee county parks to collectively steward a thriving park system.
Make downtown madison an economically strong, equitable, inclusive, and vibrant place to live, work, and visit.
The wcmp will grow and nurture the mep's impact in the state of wisconsin by engaging and aligning the best possible resources to help small and medium-sized manufacturers reach their potential.
The madison professional police officers association represents law enforcement professionals who serve the city of madison, wisconsin, as either police officers, detectives, investigators, or sergeants.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of Wisconsin Inc and the most unlike its peers is Desert Mountain Band Boosters. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 42 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 27% 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 15% 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.
25 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. 25 of the 45 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 AMERICAN ENDOWMENT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Red Caboose Child Care Center Inc ↗
- Who funds IRWIN A AND ROBERT D GOODMAN COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds GROUNDSWELL CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds MADISON PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds DANE COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds PROGRESSIVE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY SHARES OF WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF DANE COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds THE PROGRESSIVE INC ↗
- Who funds CAPE COD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF MADISON INC ↗
- Who funds Sessions at McPike Park Inc ↗
- Who funds LABORATORY FOR ICON AND IDIOM INC ↗
- Who funds WISCONSIN DEMOCRACY CAMPAIGN INC ↗
- Who funds MADISON CHILDREN'S MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds NAMI DANE COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds MAGGIE'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds DESERT MOUNTAIN BAND BOOSTERS ↗
- Who funds MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds ORLEANS CONSERVATION TRUST ↗
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: Madison Community Foundation · Madison Gas and Electric Foundation Inc · Alliant Energy Foundation Inc · The Evjue Foundation Inc · Herbert H Kohl Charities Inc · The Roots and Wings Foundation Inc · Endres Manufacturing Foundation Inc · United Way of Dane County Inc · Green Bay Packers Foundation · Firerose Foundation Inc · Community Shares of Wisconsin Inc · Veridian Foundation Inc
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 Isadore 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.
- Orleans Conservation Trust — 2% 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.