· Private foundation
The Margaret L Wendt Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k3 grants · $14k
- $10k–50k23 grants · $509k
- $50k–250k16 grants · $1.3M
- $250k+2 grants · $1.1M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BUFFALO SEMINARY | $779,306 |
| ROSWELL PARK FOUNDATION | $300,000 |
| KLEINHANS MUSIC HALL FOUNDATION | $150,000 |
| ONE SYMPHONY CIRCLE | $125,000 |
| READ TO SUCCEED | $100,000 |
| BURCHFIELD PENNEY ART CENTER | $100,000 |
| GENESIS CENTER | $100,000 |
| THE TOOL LIBRARY | $78,750 |
| WORLD OF GIRLS AND BOYS LEADERSHIP | $75,000 |
| BUFFALO TORONTO PUBLIC MEDIA | $75,000 |
| HOUSING OPTIONS MADE EASY | $72,889 |
| BUFFALO WRESTLING FOUNDATION | $70,000 |
| BUFFALO PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA | $69,414 |
| BUFFALO & ERIE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $58,000 |
| CAROUSEL SOCIETY OF NIAGARA FRONTIER | $56,000 |
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 (FY19–23, $627k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 84% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +20% since the first grant, against +8% for the ones you funded once.
32 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2024, 22 since wound down; 33 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, 12% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.5M 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
NIAGARA AQUARIUM FOUNDATION2× · 2020–2022 · $600k · revenue +79%- RCROYCROFT CAMPUS CORPORATION3× · 2019–2022 · $496k · revenue +45% · 25% of their budget
- KUKING URBAN LIFE CENTER INC2× · 2020–2023 · $400k · revenue +11% · 34% of their budget
Funded once
- BBBUFFALO BOTANICAL GARDENSone grant, 2020 · $500k
- DD'YOUVILLEone grant, 2020 · $500k
- GCGRAYCLIFF CONSERVANCY INCgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $360k · revenue +171%
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.
To acquire, remediate, and steward lands along wny's waterfronts prioritizing public access.
The organization was formed for the specific purpose of operating, maintaining and protecting parks and public spaces in the city of buffalo, new york, including but not limited to parks and public spaces owned or operated by the city of…
The Buffalo Institiute for Contemporary Art (Bica) is a art and educational project for Buffalo, NY. Through Innovative exhibitions, cross-discipplinary skills-based programming, and arts ecology development, bica mission is to break down…
Invest buffalo niagara foundation, inc. is a vehicle to solicit charitable contributions to develop programs, collaborate with, and provide funding to organizations that advance and encourage economic development in western new york.
The buffalo erie niagara land improvement corporation (benlic) seeks to confront and alleviate the problems distressed properties cause to communities by supporting municipal and regional revitalization efforts and strategically acquiring,…
Support the urban economic development efforts of the region through the acquisition, remediation and management of distressed properties
Open Buffalo's mission is to advance racial, economic, and ecological justice through skill building, network connecting, and activating leadership opportunities with the ultimate goal for all communities in Western New York to thrive free…
The legal aid bureau of buffalo, inc., a not-for-profit organization, provides legal representation to financially needy men, women and children in western new york. through its skilled staff, the legal aid bureau seeks equal justice for…
East Buffalo Development Corporation is a community-based real estate development corporation committed to our mission of leveraging private and public funds to drive equitable and inclusive eastside planning, construction, land use, and…
The mission of the Binghamton Philharmonic is building community through the power of live music.
To attract new employers to the buffalo niagara region through outreach to growing companies around the world. to support business attraction, expansion and entrepreneurship, invest buffalo niagara collaborates with local businesses,…
The theodore roosevelt inaugural national historic site to preserve, promote, and educate the public on where theodore roosevelt became the 26th president of the united states in 1901; promotes opportunities for the public to understand…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Way of Buffalo and Erie County and the most unlike its peers is Accessible Academics Usa 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 32 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 3% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 9% 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.
108 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. 108 of the 174 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 BUFFALO SEMINARY ↗
- Who funds NIAGARA AQUARIUM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR GREATER BUFFALO INC ↗
- Who funds ECMC FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ROYCROFT CAMPUS CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO HERITAGE CAROUSEL INC ↗
- Who funds KING URBAN LIFE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds GRAYCLIFF CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds THE JACOBS INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds MOUNT ST MARY'S HOSPITAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds WESTMINSTER ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds ROSWELL PARK ALLIANCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF BUFFALO AND ERIE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds THE GOW SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF BUFFALO INC ↗
- Who funds NIAGARA LUTHERAN HEALTH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds BURCHFIELD PENNEY ART CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE SUMMIT CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO FINE ARTS ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds GENESIS CENTER OF WNY INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds CITY MISSION SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S MARTIN HOUSE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds HOUGHTON UNIVERSITY ↗
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: Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo Inc · The John R Oishei Foundation · The Western New York Foundation · The Baird Foundation · Cullen Foundation · First Niagara Foundation · Children's Foundation of Erie County Inc · James H Cummings Foundation Inc · The Ralph C Wilson Jr Foundation · The Peter and Elizabeth C Tower Foundation · Cullen Foundation of Western New York Inc · East Hill 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 Margaret L Wendt 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.
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Find your warmest path to The Margaret L Wendt 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.