· Private foundation
The Joseph H & Ellen B Thomas Foundation Inc
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 49% of THE JOSEPH H & ELLEN B THOMAS FOUNDATION INC’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 · FY2024
- Under $10k57 grants · $60k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $116k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY CIRCLE | $50,000 |
| CLEVELAND CLINIC | $44,905 |
| CHILDREN'S GUILD | $25,950 |
| DENISON UNIVERSITY | $25,000 |
| CASE WESTERN RESERVE | $10,000 |
| UNITED WAY | $10,000 |
| PLAYHOUSE SQUARE | $5,000 |
| CHURCH OF THE WESTERN RESERVE | $5,000 |
| STPAUL'S CHURCH | $5,000 |
| OVERLAND SUMMER FUND | $5,000 |
| UNIVERSITY HOSPITALS | $5,000 |
| HIRAM HOUSE | $3,700 |
| YELLOWILL FUND | $3,000 |
| NATIONWIDE HOSPITAL | $3,000 |
| CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL | $3,000 |
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 (FY22–22, $50) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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 +29% since the first grant, against +5% for the ones you funded once.
74 repeat relationships — 52 still active in FY2024, 22 since wound down; 11 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $8k 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
- UCUNIVERSITY CIRCLE INCORPORATED5× · 2020–2024 · $202k · revenue +29%
- DUDENISON UNIVERSITY5× · 2020–2024 · $142k · revenue +20%
- CICLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF MUSIC5× · 2020–2024 · $126k · revenue +10%
Funded once
- UWUNITED WAY OF GREATER CLEVELANDone grant, 2020 · $11k · revenue -28%
- MFMid-Ohio Foodbankone grant, 2020 · $5k · revenue +5%
- SPST PAUL'S EPISCOPAL CHURCHone grant, 2020 · $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.
Ceu is committed to promoting the values of open society and self-reflective critical thinking. it aims at excellence in the mastery of established knowledge, courage to pursue the creation of new knowledge in the humanities, the social…
As a jesuit catholic university committed to academic rigor, inclusive excellence, and care for the whole person, john carroll university inspires individuals of intellect and character to learn, lead and serve in the community and…
The city club of cleveland's mission is to create conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive. we do this in pursuit of our vision of strong, informed individuals and communities that prize freedom of speech and civil, civic…
Cincinnati museum center inspires people of all ages to learn more about our world through science, regional history, and educational, engaging and meaningful experiences.
To protect the environment and health of all ohio communities through legal and policy advocacy, decision-maker accountability, and civic engagement.
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
The mission statement of the cleveland institute of art is as follows: to cultivate creative leaders who inspire people, strengthen communities, and contribute to a thriving and sustainable economy through an innovative education in art…
Depauw university develops leaders the world needs through an uncommon commitment to the liberal arts. depauw's diverse and inclusive learning and living experience, distinctive in its rigorous intellectual engagement and its global and…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
Manhattan school of music is deeply committed to excellence in education, performance, and creative activity; to the humanity of the school's environment; and to the cultural enrichment of the larger community. a premiere international…
The institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.
The cleveland arts prize identifies, rewards, publicly honors and promotes those creative artists whose original work and accomplishments have set a standard of excellence to which other artists can aspire. additionally, the cleveland arts…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Way of Greater Cleveland and the most unlike its peers is Overland Summers Foundation 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 59 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% 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 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.
39 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. 39 of the 114 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 UNIVERSITY CIRCLE INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds DENISON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF MUSIC ↗
- Who funds CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CHILDRENS GUILD ↗
- Who funds OVERLAND SUMMERS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF GREATER CLEVELAND ↗
- Who funds THE HIRAM HOUSE ↗
- Who funds HATHAWAY BROWN SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Mid-Ohio Foodbank ↗
- Who funds CLEVELAND MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds The Musical Arts Association ↗
- Who funds THE FUND FOR AMERICAN STUDIES ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE SANCTUARY GOLF CLUB FOUNDATION 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 Cleveland Foundation · The George Gund Foundation · John P Murphy Foundation · The Albert B & Audrey G Ratner Family Foundation · The Kelvin & Eleanor Smith Foundation · The Char and Chuck Fowler Family Foundation · Jewish Federation of Cleveland · Kulas Foundation · Emma R Fox Char Trust Mut Fds · The Andrews Foundation · Richard Horvitz and Erica Hartman-Horvitz Foundation · The Catherine L & Edward a Lozick 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 Joseph H & Ellen B Thomas Foundation Inc 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.
- Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation — 4% of income from government
- Simmons University — 1% 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.