· Private foundation
The Vera B Arrison 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 $10k11 grants · $45k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $100k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DAEMEN UNIVERSITY | $10,000 |
| OPPORTUNITIES COLLABORATIVE FOR SPECIAL NEEDS STUDENTS | $10,000 |
| HOME OF MY OWN - WNY | $10,000 |
| BUFFALO PEACE HOUSE | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| THE TEACHER'S DESK | $10,000 |
| GLIDING STARS INC | $10,000 |
| PKD FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| YMCA BUFFALO NIAGARA | $10,000 |
| CLEMENT AND KAREN ARRISON LEGACY FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| FEEDMORE WNY FOUNDATION | $8,000 |
| ST LUKE'S MISSION OF MERCY | $5,000 |
| SPCA | $5,000 |
| CAMP GOOD DAYS AND SPECIAL TIMES WNY | $5,000 |
| WINGS FLIGHTS OF HOPE | $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 (FY20–25, $252k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
28 repeat relationships — 20 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 1 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- YMYOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION BUFFALO NIAGARA6× · 2020–2025 · $83k · revenue +74%
- TTTHE TEACHERS DESK INC6× · 2020–2025 · $55k · revenue +33%
- OCOpportunities Collaborative for Students with Special Needs Inc5× · 2021–2025 · $35k · revenue +256%
Funded once
- BEBUFFALO & ERIE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETYgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $25k · revenue +63%
- NRNATIONAL ROWING FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue +14%
Fairfield Universitygraduatedone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue +34%
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.
Nyu is a private university with approximately 60,000 matriculating students in 20 schools and institutes. nyu's primary missions are education, research and scholarship, and patient care.
Niagara university educates its students and enriches their lives through programs in the liberal arts and through career preparation, informed by the catholic and vincentian traditions.
Molloy university, an independent catholic university, rooted in the dominican tradition of study, spirituality, service, and community, is committed to academic excellence with respect for each person. through transformative education,…
Bates is a college of the liberal arts and sciences, and is a coeducational, nonsectarian, residential college with special commitments to academic rigor, and to assuring in all of its efforts the dignity of each individual, and access to…
Alfred University's mission is helping students realize their purpose. People living a life of purpose enjoy longer and happier lives. Alfred University promotes its mission through three core strengths - Intersections, Mentorship, and…
With an unrelenting focus on academic excellence, the york academy regional charter school's mission is to challenge students in a diverse learning environment that opens doors for growth, opportunity and global citizenship.
New york institute of technology (nyit) offers various degree programs, including undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees, in more than 50 fields of study, including architecture and design; arts and sciences; (continued on…
Promote educational excellence, leadership, & service via a strong commitment to our students.
The school engages the student in a diverse and creative community that nurtures the joy and responsibility of active learning in all, from our youngest learners to our graduates, who leave with the skills essential to college success and…
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wny Heroes Inc and the most unlike its peers is Clement and Karen Arrison Legacy Foundation. 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 31 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) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 2% 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.
18 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. 18 of the 33 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 YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION BUFFALO NIAGARA ↗
- Who funds GLIDING STARSINC ↗
- Who funds THE TEACHERS DESK INC ↗
- Who funds PKD Foundation ↗
- Who funds Opportunities Collaborative for Students with Special Needs Inc ↗
- Who funds FEEDMORE WNY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NICHOLS SCHOOL OF BUFFALO ↗
- Who funds CLEMENT AND KAREN ARRISON LEGACY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO & ERIE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds WINGS FLIGHTS OF HOPE ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO PEACE HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds DAEMEN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CANISIUS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds WNY HEROES INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ROWING FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds The Rural Outreach Center Inc ↗
- Who funds Fairfield University ↗
- Who funds KIDNEY FOUNDATION OF WNY 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 Margaret L Wendt Foundation · The Baird Foundation · First Niagara Foundation · Mother Cabrini Health Foundation Inc · Scott Bieler Foundation Inc · Foundation 214 Inc · Nfada Charitable Foundation · Tower Family Fund Inc · Buffalo Bills Foundation Inc · The Western New York Foundation · The John R Oishei 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 Vera B Arrison 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.
- Fairfield University — 1% of income from government
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.