· Private foundation
The Norman Olson Charitable Foundation Trust
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
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 $10k5 grants · $28k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| JEWISH FAMILY & CHILDREN | $50,000 |
| WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY | $9,000 |
| CONGREGATION RODEPH SHALOM | $7,835 |
| PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA | $5,000 |
| OLANA PARTNERSHIP | $3,000 |
| SCHOOL DISTRICT OF PHILA | $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 (FY17–21, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +47% since the first grant, against +16% for the ones you funded once.
12 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 3 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, 25% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $58k 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
CARING FOR FRIENDS4× · 2020–2024 · $40k · revenue +9%- PSPERKIOMEN SCHOOL3× · 2017–2019 · $28k · revenue +51%
- WUWESLEYAN UNIVERSITY4× · 2022–2025 · $20k · revenue +47%
Funded once
- JFJEWISH FAMILY & CHILDREN SERVICESone grant, 2024 · $20k
- HOHUDSON OPERA HOUSE INCone grant, 2017 · $10k · revenue -55%
- TCTHOMAS COLE HISTORIC HOUSEone grant, 2021 · $5k · revenue +16%
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.
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The cleveland institute of music's mission is to empower the world's most talented classical music students to fulfill their dreams and potential.
Provides innovative education in a dynamic urban setting. dedicated to academic excellence and community engagement,we prepare students of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skill,and experience to lead meaningful lives as informed…
Kaufman music center stimulates appreciation of and participation in music through music performance and education in ways that awaken creativity, advance innovation, and create a sense of wonder among performers, students, teachers, and…
See schedule ovision: the cooper union for the advancement of science and art is dedicated to peter cooper's radical commitment to diversity and his founding vision that fair access to an inspiring free education and forums for courageous…
Gettysburg college is a residential, undergraduate college of the liberal arts and sciences.
Germantown academy inspires students to be independent in thought; confident in expression; compassionate in spirit; collaborative in action; and honorable in deed. germantown academy is a private school educating students from pre-k…
Dickinson college provides a useful, innovative and interdisciplinary education in the liberal arts and sciences to prepare students to lead rich and fulfilling lives of engaged global citizenship
New york school of interior design provides the most innovative, immersive, and transformative interior design education in the world, demonstrating the impact of professionally designed interiors on the health, happiness, and well-being…
The mission of the jewish museum is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret art and jewish culture. see schedule o for more information.
The institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Curtis Institute of Music and the most unlike its peers is Caring for Friends. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 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. 10 of the 24 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 CARING FOR FRIENDS ↗
- Who funds PERKIOMEN SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE BALDWIN SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds JEWISH RELIEF AGENCY ↗
- Who funds HUDSON OPERA HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds THE OLANA PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds PHILADELPHIA ORCHESTRA ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THOMAS COLE HISTORIC HOUSE ↗
- Who funds CURTIS INSTITUTE OF MUSIC ↗
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: National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Norman Olson Charitable Foundation Trust 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.
- Wesleyan 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Norman Olson Charitable Foundation Trust?
Find your warmest path to The Norman Olson Charitable Foundation Trust 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.