· Private foundation
The Reading 1 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
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $8k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $60k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $131k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LAUREL SCHOOL | $80,000 |
| CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART | $51,000 |
| HOPEWELL | $20,000 |
| CLEVELAND ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY | $20,000 |
| THE WILLOWS COMMUNITY SCHOOL | $10,000 |
| UCHICAGO SPACE PROGRAM | $10,000 |
| FAIRMOUNT PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH | $7,500 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 93% of your 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 +30% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
7 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down; 2 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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $18k 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
- LSLAUREL SCHOOL6× · 2020–2025 · $455k · revenue +36%
- TCTHE CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART6× · 2020–2025 · $144k · revenue +34%
- SLSHAKER LAKES REGIONAL NATURE CENTER DBA NATURE CENTER AT SHAKER LAKES6× · 2020–2025 · $108k · revenue +24%
Funded once
- SSSHADY SIDE ACADEMY4× · 2022–2025 · $25k · revenue +19%
CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITYgraduated5× · 2021–2025 · $20k · revenue +34%- LMLUTHERAN METROPOLITAN MINISTRY5× · 2020–2024 · $10k · revenue -22%
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 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…
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…
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 school is dedicated to excellence in the education of girls. our true mission, as reflected in our motto "non scholae sed vitae discimus," is learning & preparation for life.
Lewis & clark is a premier private higher education institution offering an exceptional education in an inclusive environment. by fostering critical thinking, innovation, creativity, civic engagement, and leadership, both inside and…
Capital university transforms lives by empowering an inclusive community of learners through engaging academic, co-curricular, and professional experiences.
Clark university's mission is to educate undergraduate and graduate students to be imaginative and contributing citizens of the world, and to advance the frontiers of knowledge and understanding through rigorous scholarship and creative…
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…
Wesleyan university is dedicated to providing an education in liberal arts by building a diverse, energetic community of students, faculty, and staff who value independence of mind and generosity of spirit. see additional description in…
The college of wooster is a community of independent minds, working together to prepare students to become leaders of character and influence in an interdependent global community. (continued on schedule o)we engage motivated students in a…
Otterbein University is an inclusive community dedicated to educating the whole person in the context of humane values. Our mission is to prepare graduates to think deeply and broadly, to engage locally and globally, and to advance their…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Cleveland Institute of Art and the most unlike its peers is Heights Youth Club 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 68 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
22 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.
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 LAUREL SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THE CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF ART ↗
- Who funds SHAKER LAKES REGIONAL NATURE CENTER DBA NATURE CENTER AT SHAKER LAKES ↗
- Who funds CLEVELAND ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds HOPEWELL ↗
- Who funds THE WILLOWS COMMUNITY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SHADY SIDE ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds LUTHERAN METROPOLITAN MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY CIRCLE INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds CLEVELAND INSTITUTE OF MUSIC ↗
- Who funds WESTERN RESERVE HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF BREAKTHROUGH SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds Southern Methodist 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: The Cleveland Foundation · The Louise H & David S Ingalls Fdn · A Malachi Mixon III & Barbara W Mixon Foundation · The Kelvin & Eleanor Smith Foundation · Emma R Fox Char Trust Mut Fds · Jewish Federation of Cleveland · Jane and Jon Outcalt Foundation · Richard Horvitz and Erica Hartman-Horvitz Foundation · Third Federal Foundation · The Lozick Family Foundation · The George Gund Foundation · Dominion Energy Charitable 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 Reading 1 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.