· Private foundation
The Robert and Mary Ellen Stephens
Its FY2024 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 FY2022–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k13 grants · $13k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $34k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NEW COVENANT COMMUNITY CHURCH | $21,500 |
| CBMC | $12,000 |
| YOUTH FOR CHRIST | $5,000 |
| THE GROVE CHURCH | $2,000 |
| NAVIGATORS | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| THE SALVATION ARMY | $500 |
| FOOD BANK OF LINCOLN | $500 |
| NEBRASKA RIGHT TO LIFE EDUCATIONAL | $500 |
| FRIENDSHIP HOME | $500 |
| CENTERPOINTE | $500 |
| SAMARITANS PURSE | $500 |
| COMMUNITY ACTION PARTNERSHIP | $500 |
| CONCRETE CARES | $300 |
| STATE TROOPERS ASSOCIATION OF NE | $100 |
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, $1k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 70% of The Robert and Mary Ellen Stephens’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 68% of the giving stays in NE; read by stated purpose it is 17% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +10% since the first grant, against -16% for the ones you funded once.
4 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2024, 0 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, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $7k 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
- NCNEW COVENANT COMMUNITY CHURCH3× · 2022–2024 · $64k
- CCBMC2× · 2022–2024 · $29k
- OYOMAHA YOUTH FOR CHRIST2× · 2023–2024 · $10k · revenue +10%
Funded once
- EMEvery Man A Warrior Incgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $5k · revenue +28%
- CCCORNHUKER COUNCIL BOY SCOUTSone grant, 2023 · $3k
- ALAMERICAN LEGIONone grant, 2023 · $1k
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.
Hope gospel rescue mission is a christ centered ministry in york, nebraska. helping the hurting & homeless in the name of jesus christ.
Atlas is a mentor based, prayer driven ministry that provides personal development services to individuals and families who are hurting for a variety of reasons. atlas aims to be a safe, confidential place that offers our services for free…
The lawrence community shelter is the only emergency homeless shelter serving lawrence and douglas county in kansas. our mission is to provide a safe shelter and comprehensive services and programs in order to set people experiencing or at…
To perform the works of mercy in response to the call of god. our corporal works of mercy performed primarily include providing food, clothing, shelter, and prison ministry. our spiritual works of mercy performed primarily include…
This church will be that place of emergency where people can come any time of day or night. We will be a place that will lead people back to health both spiritually and naturally.
Provide temporary housing and assistance to homeless individuals in the lincoln, nebraska area.
Bridge of Hope empowers Lincoln County neighbors to overcome housing crises through resources, healing, and hope. We provide safe shelter, advocacy, and connections to community resources that help individuals and families work toward…
Lutheran indian ministries shares the gospel of jesus christ with native american people, encouraging them to proclaim christ's kingdom to their own and to others.
To promote, facilitate and develop or co-develop affordable housing in lincoln county, nebraska.
To provide and connect resources in western douglas county, nebraska for those whose needs are temporarily greater than their means.
To serve the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of lincoln's working poor, and homeless through outreach, advocacy, education, and the provision of food and shelter.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Omaha Youth for Christ and the most unlike its peers is Samaritan's Purse. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
8 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. 8 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 OMAHA YOUTH FOR CHRIST ↗
- Who funds Every Man A Warrior Inc ↗
- Who funds OPEN DOOR MISSION D/B/A OPEN DOOR MISSION & LYDIA HOUSE ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF LINCOLN INC ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAN'S PURSE ↗
- Who funds FRIENDSHIP HOME OF LINCOLN INC ↗
- Who funds CENTERPOINTE INC ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN CHRISTIAN SCHOOL FOUNDATION SHORT TAX YEAR ENDED 5/31/2025 ↗
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: Lincoln Community Foundation Inc · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · 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 Robert and Mary Ellen Stephens 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Robert and Mary Ellen Stephens?
Find your warmest path to The Robert and Mary Ellen Stephens 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.