· Public charity
The John and Mary Alford Foundation
To provide support of educational, social, religious and cultural programs to meet the needs of the growing and changing licking county, ohio community.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $13k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $95k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $350k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LICKING MEMORIAL HEALTH FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF CENTRAL OHIO | $50,000 |
| SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL HOUSING FACILITY INC | $50,000 |
| NEWARK CAMPUS DEVELOPMENT FUND | $50,000 |
| NEWARK DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS | $50,000 |
| CITY OF NEWARK | $50,000 |
| LICKING COUNTY FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| FURNITURE BANK OF CENTRAL OHIO | $20,000 |
| CITY OF HEALTH | $20,000 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF NEWARK | $20,000 |
| LICKING COUNTY MASTER GARDENER VOLUNTEERS | $10,000 |
| 4TH CAMP OHIO | $7,000 |
| PATASKALA UNITED METHODIST CHURCH | $6,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $272k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 44% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 100% of The John and Mary Alford Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 90% of the giving stays in OH; read by stated purpose it is 0% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
22 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 17 since wound down; 8 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, 43% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $263k 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
- NCNEWARK CAMPUS DEVELOPMENT FUND4× · 2018–2025 · $502k · revenue +23%
- TWTHE WORKS - OHIO CENTER FOR HISTORY ART & TECHNOLOGY4× · 2017–2022 · $150k · revenue +69%
- HFHABITAT FOR HUMANITY - MIDOHIO4× · 2017–2023 · $145k · revenue +93%
Funded once
- SKSIMON KENTON COUNCIL BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICAgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $50k · revenue +67%
- LULOOK UP MINISTRIESone grant, 2022 · $50k · revenue -39%
- LCLICKING COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETYgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $50k · revenue +77%
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.
Advancing a thriving central ohio commmunity by serving as a catalyst for all businesses to grow and flourish. our mission pillars are connections, government relations, strategic business solutions and talent/workforce.
See schedule oto create a better world by serving people in need by operating food pantries, homeless shelters, a domestic violence shelter, affordable housing communities, senior living, assisted living and skilled care facilities, a home…
Through partnership, guiding those in need to sustainable housing.
The mission of the licking land trust is the preservation and permanent protection of central ohio green spaces, wetlands, woods, farmlands, riparian corridors, and scenic vistas, and education about the importance of green spaces and…
See schedule oohio living communities was founded in 1922 and was incorporated as an ohio non-profit corporation in 1959. the corporation's mission statement is as follows:our mission is to provide older adults with caring and quality…
Improving people's lives in licking county, ohio by raising, prioritizing, awarding and monitoring funds allocated to programs that demonstrate success in the areas of education, income, health, and basic needs.
To create a better world by serving people in need by operating food pantries, homeless shelters, a domestic violence shelter, affordable housing communities, senior living, assisted living and skilled care facilities, a home health care…
Greater cleveland volunteers enriches the community and indivuduals through volunteer service. volunteers age 18 and older are recruited and placed in the agency's programs or referred to local nonprofit or public organizations to help…
Global cleveland is dedicated to growing northeast ohio's economy by welcoming and connecting international people to opportunities and fostering a more inviting community for those seeking a place to call home.
Empower the people of greater cleveland to achieve success through technology, innovation and connected community.
The mission of leadership columbus is to develop, connect and inspire leaders who serve as catalysts in building a strong and vibrant community.
The mission of the greater cleveland sports commission is to measurably improve the economy of greater cleveland and enrich the community by attracting, creating, managing and enhancing significant sporting and competitive events.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is A Call to College and the most unlike its peers is In His Image New Life Christian Stables. 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 32 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) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 12% 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 49 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 NEWARK CAMPUS DEVELOPMENT FUND ↗
- Who funds NEWARK DEVELOPMENT PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds THE WORKS - OHIO CENTER FOR HISTORY ART & TECHNOLOGY ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY - MIDOHIO ↗
- Who funds THE BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF NEWARK INC ↗
- Who funds LICKING MEMORIAL HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds Granville Athletic Boosters ↗
- Who funds HOSPICE OF CENTRAL OHIO ↗
- Who funds THE DAWES ARBORETUM ↗
- Who funds Junior Achievement of Central Ohio Inc ↗
- Who funds SIMON KENTON COUNCIL BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds LOOK UP MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds THE BRYN DU COMMISSION ↗
- Who funds LICKING COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds OHIO CAMPUS COMPACT ↗
- Who funds Licking County Family YMCA ↗
- Who funds GRANVILLE CHRISTIAN ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds TOGETHER WE GROW INC ↗
- Who funds MENTAL HEALTH AMERICA OF LICKING COUNTY ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR DISABILITY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds LICKING COUNTY GOVERNMENTAL PRESERVATION SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds THE FOOD PANTRY NETWORK OF LICKING COUNTY ↗
- Who funds NEWARK ROTARY CLUB FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OHIO CANCER RESEARCH ASSOCIATES ↗
- Who funds In His Image New Life Christian Stables ↗
- Who funds FURNITURE BANK OF CENTRAL OHIO ↗
- Who funds LEARNING 4 LIFE FARM ↗
- Who funds A CALL TO COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds LIFEWISE INC ↗
- Who funds PAR EXCELLENCE LEARNING CENTER ↗
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: Licking County Foundation Inc · First Federal Foundation · Energy Cooperative Roundup Foundation Inc · Park National Corporation Foundation · The Lindorf Family Foundation · Columbus Foundation · Licking Memorial Health Foundation · Cecil Mauger Charitable Trust · The O'Neill Foundation · The Englefield Foundation · The Lefevre Foundation · The Patricia R and Herbert J Murphy 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 John and Mary Alford 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 John and Mary Alford Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The John and Mary Alford 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.