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The Stephanie and Barry Zekelman Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Stephanie and Barry Zekelman Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$1.7M
Granted FY2025still arriving
11
Grants FY2025still arriving
7
States reached
$1.3M
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its fieldRead
04Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2023 to 2025.

Arts & Culture$2.7MHealth$398kPublic Safety & Disaster$300kPhilanthropy$250kEducation$103kRecreation & Sports$100k
02FY2025 · 11 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k3 grants · $9k
  • $10k–50k3 grants · $45k
  • $50k–250k4 grants · $300k
  • $250k+1 grant · $1.3M
$25,000
Median grant
7
States reached
$7.5M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL CENTER$1,333,333
THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM$100,000
MAYO CLINIC$100,000
JOHN HOPKINS UNIVERSITY$50,000
AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION INC$50,000
SPINA BIFIDA ASSOCIATION OF NORTH TEXAS$25,000
KIDS KICKING CANCER INC$10,350
LOWER EAST SIDE PRINT SHOP$10,000
NATIONAL MS SOCIETY$5,300
EANES EDUCATION FOUNDATION$3,000
CHALLENGE TO CONQUER CANCER - C3$1,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY23–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 23% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 9%MAYO CLINIC: $100k → 9%UNITED HATZALAH: $50k → 17%EANES EDUCATION FOUNDATION: $3k → 10%SPINA BIFIDA ASSOCIATION OF NORTH TEXAS: $25k → 11%AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION INC: $50k → 14%FUNDS OF ISRAEL TOMORROW: $250k → 14%KIDS KICKING CANCER INC: $10k → 8%SOUTH BEND YOUTH HOCKEY: $100k → 13%CHILDHOOD LEUKEMIA WARRIORS: $5k → 7%JOHN HOPKINS UNIVERSITY: $50k → 19%MAYO CLINIC: $100k → 9%LOWER EAST SIDE PRINT SHOP: $10k → 17%HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL CENTER: $1.3M → 8%LOWER EAST SIDE PRINTSHOP: $10k → 17%HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL: $1.3M → 8%AMERICAN FRIENDS OF BAR IL: $50k → 17%NATIONAL MS SOCIETY: $5k → 17%YUD FOUNDATION: $250k → 17%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

MN
IL
MI
NY
IN
PA
MD
SC
DC
AL
TX
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
Targeting Resistance in Cancer Cooperative
Health
2
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc

The mission of dfci is to provide expert, compassionate, and equitable care to children, adults, and their families, while advancing the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, cure, and prevention of cancer and related diseases. we train new…

Health
3
Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute

Sanford burnham prebys medical discovery institute's mission is to advance the biomedical sciences by cultivating the next generation of scientific leaders, providing meaningful opportunities for researchers of all backgrounds to learn,…

Health
4
Kadet Cancer Research Foundation
—
5
Fund for Myeloma Education and Research Inc
Health
6
Shlofmitz Heart Foundation Inc Attnddk

The mission of the shlofmitz heart foundation (shf) is to contribute to the advancement and enhancement of cardiac care, well being, research and education. shf will make grants to other organizations for unmet needs in the area of…

Health
7
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

Fred hutch cancer center ("fred hutch") unites innovative research and compassionate care to prevent and eliminate cancer and infectious disease. continued on schedule o

Health
8
MadHatter Cycling
Recreation & Sports
9
The Johns Hopkins Hospital

For more than 125 years, the mission of the johns hopkins hospital has been to lead the world in the diagnosis and treatment of disease and to train tomorrow's great physicians, nurses and scientists. above all, we aim to provide the…

Health
10
Riding for the Cure
Health
11
We Beat Cancer
Philanthropy
12
Urologic Cancer Foundation
—
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Holocaust Memorial Center Inc; the most unlike its peers is Challenge to Conquer Cancer. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
04the grantee network

11 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 11 of the 20 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
11/11
Grantees still filing
7/11
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Individual grant recipient: $1,333,333 · OtherIndividual grant recipientFUNDS OF ISRAEL TOMORROW: $250,000 · OtherFUNDS OF ISRAEL TOMORROWMAYO CLINIC: $100,000 · OtherTHE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM: $100,000 · Other+7 more: $205,300 · Other+7 moreHOLOCAUST MEMORIAL CENTER INC: $1,333,333 · Arts & CultureHOLOCAUST MEMORIAL CENTER INCFRIENDS OF UNITED HATZALAH INC: $50,000 · Arts & CultureYud Foundation Inc: $250,000 · ReligionMAYO CLINIC: $100,000 · HealthAmerican Heart Association Inc: $50,000 · HealthKIDS KICKING CANCER INC: $10,350 · Health+1 more: $2,000 · HealthSOUTH BEND YOUTH HOCKEY INC: $100,000 · Recreation & SportsEanes Education Foundation: $3,000 · Education
Other$1,988,633Arts & Culture$1,383,333Religion$250,000Health$162,350Recreation & Sports$100,000Education$3,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetYud Foundation Inc: $250,000 over 1y, 5.7% of budgetSOUTH BEND YOUTH HOCKEY INC: $100,000 over 1y, 2.8% of budgetFRIENDS OF UNITED HATZALAH INC: $50,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetAmerican Heart Association Inc: $50,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetLOWER EAST SIDE PRINTSHOP INC: $20,000 over 2y, 1.8% of budgetEanes Education Foundation: $3,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetCHALLENGE TO CONQUER CANCER: $2,000 over 2y, 0.6% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Fidelity Investments …Amazonsmile Foundation
Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift FundMA4.7× affinity4 shared granteesties to 1 of 1Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Stephanie and Barry Zekelman Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Stephanie and Barry Zekelman Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%1%3%6%10%funder's share of their income ↑0%5%10%15%20%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–20%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
    04Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to The Stephanie and Barry Zekelman Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to The Stephanie and Barry Zekelman Foundation 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 20 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Stephanie and Barry Zekelman’s filings →

    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The endowment market
    who holds foundation money, and what just moved
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home