· Private foundation
The Ludwig and Nancy Sternberger Charitable Foundation
Its FY2025 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: 45% of The Ludwig and Nancy Sternberger Charitable Foundation’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 · FY2025
- Under $10k3 grants · $18k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $114k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $444k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY | $200,000 |
| LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION INC | $90,000 |
| WALTERS ART MUSEUM FOUNDATION INC | $54,000 |
| LIVING CLASSROOMS FOUNDATION INC | $50,000 |
| JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY | $50,000 |
| TROUT UNLIMITED | $28,500 |
| VALLEYS PLANNING COUNCIL INC | $25,000 |
| GIRLS FOR A CHANGE | $25,000 |
| HOPEWELL CANCER SUPPORT INC | $15,000 |
| INSTITUTE OF AMERICAN INDIAN ARTS FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| ART WITH A HEART INC | $10,000 |
| INFORMED EXPERIENCES INC | $7,500 |
| CHESTNUT RIDGE VOLUNTEER FIRE COMPANY | $5,000 |
| WALTERS ART MUSEUM FOUNDATION INC | $5,000 |
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 (FY23–25, $25k) land where the poverty rate runs at 19%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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.
15 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY6× · 2020–2025 · $1.3M · revenue +42%- TWTHE WHEELWRIGHT MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN5× · 2017–2022 · $484k · revenue +48%
- IOINSTITUTE OF AMERICAN INDIAN ARTS FOUNDATION6× · 2017–2025 · $187k · revenue +25%
Funded once
- TDTHE DIGDEEP RIGHT TO WATER PROJECTone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue -5%
- CMCOSMO MUSIC SCHOOL INCone grant, 2019 · $10k
- BABALTIMORE AREA COUNCIL #220 BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICAgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue +32%
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 mission is implemented through: intentional art collecting in the focus areas of american art and world cultures, barrier free public access and free admission to art collections of national importance, vigilant preservation and…
To collect, display and interpret objects in craft art and design.
The fort wayne museum of art will collect, preserve and present american and related art to engage and educate broad and diverse audiences throughout the region and add value to their lives.
The museum is an educational corporation formed to ignite a life-long passion for exploring, discovering, and valuing nature and science.
Bainbridge island museum of art (bima) inspires curiosity, wonder and understanding by connecting people with the contemporary art and craft of the puget sound region.
To create visual arts experiences that engage people and inspire learning through exceptional exhibitions, collections, and educational opportunities.
Degree granting college-maryland institute college of art is a private college dedicated to the education of professional artists and the further advancement of art in the community.
The museum of northwest art collects, preserves, interprets and exhibits art created in the pacific northwest, supports artists, and strives to integrate art into the lives of all people. the museum is free and open to the public seven…
The mission of the muscarelle museum of art is to foster the full integration of a dynamic art museum into the life and liberal arts mission of william & mary and to serve as a model of curatorial excellence and a catalyst for art…
Washington project for the arts, inc. (wpa) supports artist-driven projects, advocacy, and dialogue so that artists can live, work, and flourish.
Promotes the arts and related activities at local, state and national levels
Museum has a mission to create opportunties for everyone to experience art that broadens understanding of the past, fosters community connections to the present, and creates diverse possbilities for the future.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mid Shore Community Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Baltimore Museum of Art. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
17 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. 17 of the 23 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 JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE WHEELWRIGHT MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN ↗
- Who funds THE VALLEYS PLANNING COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE OF AMERICAN INDIAN ARTS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WALTERS ART MUSEUM FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF NEW MEXICO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds HOPEWELL CANCER SUPPORT ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY CRISIS CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE CHESTNUT RIDGE VOL FIRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds Art With a Heart Inc ↗
- Who funds MID SHORE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE DIGDEEP RIGHT TO WATER PROJECT ↗
- Who funds BALTIMORE AREA COUNCIL #220 BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds BELIEVE IN MUSIC INC ↗
- Who funds GUNPOWDER VALLEY CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds HISPANIC FEDERATION 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: Baltimore Community Foundation Inc · T Rowe Price Program for Charitable Giving Inc · The John J Leidy Foundation Inc · France-Merrick Foundation Inc · The United Way of Central Maryland Inc · Associated Jewish Charities of Baltimore · Network for Good · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift 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 Ludwig and Nancy Sternberger Charitable 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Gunpowder Valley Conservancy Inc — 20% of income from government
- Johns Hopkins University — 12% of income from government
- Baltimore Museum of Art — 4% of income from government
- Art With a Heart 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.