· Private foundation
The Robert J & Martha B Fierle Fndn
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: 49% of THE ROBERT J & MARTHA B FIERLE FNDN’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 $10k10 grants · $36k
- $10k–50k11 grants · $189k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| RURAL OUTREACH CENTER | $30,000 |
| BUFFALO AND ERIE COUNTY BOTANICAL GARDENS | $28,300 |
| BUFFALO PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA | $25,000 |
| BUFFALO CENTER FOR ARTS & TECHNOLOGY | $20,000 |
| JERICHO ROAD COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER | $20,000 |
| JUST BUFFALO LITERARY CENTER | $15,000 |
| HORIZON HEALTH SERVICES | $11,016 |
| HALLWALLS CONTEMPORARY ARTS CENTER | $10,000 |
| BUFFALO AUDUBON TRILLIUM NATURE CENTER | $10,000 |
| CEPA GALLERY | $10,000 |
| JUPITER MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| FEEDMORE WNY | $5,000 |
| VISUALLY IMPAIRED ADVANCEMENT | $5,000 |
| BUFFALO AKG ART MUSEUM | $5,000 |
| UNITED WAY OF BUFFALO | $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 (FY17–25, $251k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +58% since the first grant, against +28% for the ones you funded once.
33 repeat relationships — 18 still active in FY2025, 15 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, 79% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $48k 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
The Rural Outreach Center Inc7× · 2019–2025 · $210k · revenue +179%
JERICHO ROAD MINISTRIES INC7× · 2019–2025 · $107k · revenue +157%- CFCenter for Exploratory and Perceptual Arts Inc8× · 2017–2025 · $95k · revenue +31%
Funded once
- BSBARD SANCTUARY FUNDone grant, 2024 · $15k
- BABUFFALO ACADEMY OF SCIENCEone grant, 2024 · $10k
- NDNEW DIRECTIONSone grant, 2023 · $10k
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 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…
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,…
To acquire, remediate, and steward lands along wny's waterfronts prioritizing public access.
The community health center of buffalo, inc operates four freestanding federally qualified health centers licensed as a diagnostic and treatment center under article 28 of the ny state health law. the center provides a broad range of…
Founded in 1987, leadership buffalo, inc conducts programs designed to enhance development of long-term leadership in the greater buffalo, ny community. the organization develops and unites leaders of diverse backgrounds and perspectives…
By mobilizing members and strategic partners around common goals, the partnership grows private investment and jobs in buffalo niagara through advocacy, business development, and convening.
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…
To improve the quality of life for elderly, disabled and low-income persons in the western new york area through the provision of free civil legal services. the primary goal is to use the legal system to assure that clients may live…
We. empower. veterans. the veterans one-stop center of wny, inc. is the region's premiere veterans service and advocacy not-for-profit collaborative agency empowering veterans, veteran families and service members in achieving economic…
Lawny increases access to justice through excellent legal representation, advocacy and service.
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,…
We welcome all western new yorkers for high quality, patient-centered primary healthcare.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo Inc and the most unlike its peers is Save the Michaels of the World 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 39 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
32 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. 32 of the 57 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 The Rural Outreach Center Inc ↗
- Who funds JERICHO ROAD MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Arts Inc ↗
- Who funds JUST BUFFALO LITERARY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Jupiter Medical Center Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds HORIZON HEALTH SERVICES ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO ARTS AND TECHNOLOGY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds PROVIDENCE FARM COLLECTIVE CORP ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO FINE ARTS ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds ROSWELL PARK ALLIANCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FEEDMORE WESTERN NEW YORK INC ↗
- Who funds VIA VISUALLY IMPAIRED ADVANCEMENT ↗
- Who funds FISH OF EAST AURORA INC ↗
- Who funds SAVE THE MICHAELS OF THE WORLD INC ↗
- Who funds ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF BUFFALO INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF ELMA MARILLA AND WALES INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR GREATER BUFFALO INC ↗
- Who funds HORIZON HEALTH ALLIANCE LTD ↗
- Who funds HALLWALLS INC ↗
- Who funds LOTHLORIEN THERAPEUTIC RIDING CENTER ↗
- Who funds WEST SIDE COMMUNITY SERVICES 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: Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo Inc · The John R Oishei Foundation · Children's Foundation of Erie County Inc · Cullen Foundation · The Western New York Foundation · United Way of Buffalo and Erie County · The Peter and Elizabeth C Tower Foundation · James H Cummings Foundation Inc · The Margaret L Wendt Foundation · The Frank G Raichle Foundation · Simple Gifts Fund · Cullen Foundation of Western New York Inc
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 J & Martha B Fierle Fndn 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 J & Martha B Fierle Fndn?
Find your warmest path to The Robert J & Martha B Fierle Fndn 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.