· Private foundation
The Ross Foundation Inc
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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k15 grants · $65k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $50k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
- $250k+2 grants · $5.2M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY AT PARKERSBURG | $4,800,000 |
| CHILDRENS MUSEUM OF THE MOV INC | $405,000 |
| DOWNTOWN PKB | $50,000 |
| BROADWAY CARES-EQUITY FIGHTS AIDS INC | $15,000 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF PARKERSBURG | $15,000 |
| ADOPT A GOLDEN ATLANTA INC | $10,000 |
| NATIONWIDE CHILDRENS HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| CAMDEN CLARK FOUNDATION | $7,000 |
| LINDER CENTER OF HOPE | $6,750 |
| PHILANTHROPY WEST VIRGINIA INC | $5,750 |
| THE WHITNEY INSTITUTE | $5,000 |
| WARREN WILSON COLLEGE | $5,000 |
| ASHEVILLE AREA HFH | $5,000 |
| MARIETTA COLLEGE | $5,000 |
| FRIENDS OF VIENNA | $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 (FY17–20, $299k) land where the poverty rate runs at 19%, 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.
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 7% of The Ross Foundation Inc’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, 97% of the giving stays in WV; read by stated purpose it is 92% — 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.
43 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2024, 27 since wound down; 4 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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $24k 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
- CMCHILDREN'S MUSEUM OF THE MOV INC6× · 2019–2024 · $11M · revenue +121% · 96% of their budget
- WVWEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC7× · 2017–2023 · $3.2M · revenue +5%
- AGActors Guild of Parkersburg Inc4× · 2017–2020 · $333k · revenue +39% · 44% of their budget
Funded once
- WVWEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY AT PARKERSBURG FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $78k
- TETHE EDUCATION ALLIANCE-BUSINESS AND COMMUNITY FOR PUBLIC SCHOOL INCone grant, 2019 · $47k
- WCWOOD COUNTY SCHOOLSone grant, 2017 · $33k
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 association of washington cities builds connections between our state's diverse cities and towns, while providing our members with the support needed to thrive through delivery of data-driven education, nationally recognized pooling…
Waynesburg university educates students to make connections between faith, learning and serving so they might faithfully transofrm their communiities and the world. see continuation on schedule o.as a christian comprehensive university, we…
To foster, support, and assist in any research and economic development activities consistent with the educational objectives and mission of west virginia state university.
Our goal is to sustainably improve animal welfare, provide veterinary care, and improve veterinary education globally. in order to achieve this goal, we work in over 10 countries, across 5 continents, supporting local people and animals,…
To promote, encourage, and assist in the development and growth of west virginia university at parkersburg and to render services to its faculty, students, and alumni, and to the citizens of west virginia.
The western pennsylvania conservancy protects and restores exceptional places to provide our region with clean waters and healthy forests, wildlife and natural areas for the benefit of present and future generations. the conservancy…
Goodwill's mission is to empower individuals, strengthen families, and inspire communities through job skills training and work placement opportunities with a multi-generational approach focused on removing barriers.
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
We are a community of cpas and financial professionals cultivating authentic relationships, unique learning experiences, and purposeful advocacy for our future.
Visit philadelphia is our name and our mission. as the region's official tourism marketing agency, we build greater philadelphia's image, drive visitation and boost the economy.
Goodwill's mission is to empower individuals, strengthen families, and inspire communities through job skills training and work placement opportunities with a multi-generational approach focused on removing barriers.
The west virginia chamber of commerce provides opportunities for broad based prosperity throughout west virginia.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is West Virginia University Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Boys and Girls Club of Pleasants Co. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 39 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
44 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. 44 of the 67 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 CHILDREN'S MUSEUM OF THE MOV INC ↗
- Who funds WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds DOWNTOWN PKB INC ↗
- Who funds Actors Guild of Parkersburg Inc ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY RESOURCES INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS CLUB OF PARKERSBURG INC ↗
- Who funds THE EDUCATION ALLIANCE-BUSINESS AND COMMUNITY FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS INC ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF PARKERSBURG ↗
- Who funds Parkersburg Art Center Inc ↗
- Who funds Make-A-Wish Foundation of Greater PA and West Virginia Inc ↗
- Who funds ADOPT A GOLDEN ATLANTA INC ↗
- Who funds BROADWAY CARESEQUITY FIGHTS AIDS INC ↗
- Who funds THE GREATER GREENBRIER VALLEY ↗
- Who funds Marietta College ↗
- Who funds THE CHILDREN'S HOME SOCIETY OF WEST VIRGINIA INC ↗
- Who funds DENVER CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds Equine Encore Performance at Charles Town Inc ↗
- Who funds ARTSBRIDGE INC ↗
- Who funds RIVER VALLEY CHILD DEVELOPMENT SERVICES SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds PHILANTHROPY WEST VIRGINIA INC ↗
- Who funds THE KISKI SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF PLEASANTS CO ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY ALLIANCE OF THE MID-OHIO VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds WEST VIRGINIA NONPROFIT ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds THE WHITNEY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF VIENNA ↗
- Who funds SAVE A KITTY FERAL CAT PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds PARKERSBURG WOOD COUNTY AREA DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ↗
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: Parkersburg Area Community Foundation Inc (Previously Pacf Inc) · Bernard McDonough Foundation Inc · Sisters of St Joseph Charitable Fund Inc · Peoples Bank Foundation · Deitzler Foundation Inc · Spartan Foundation · Oakland Foundation Inc · Marietta Community Foundation Inc · The Virginia L Neptune Charitable Foundation · Fenton Foundation Inc · United Way Alliance of the Mid-Ohio Valley Inc · Bowles Rice 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 Ross Foundation Inc 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 Ross Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to The Ross Foundation Inc 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.