· Private foundation
The Wristen Family 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CASA of McHenry County | $7,500 |
| Young Life (Madison WI) | $5,000 |
| Cary Grove Food Pantry | $5,000 |
| The Orchard Evangelical Free Church | $5,000 |
| Direct Relief | $5,000 |
| The Navigators | $5,000 |
| Safe Families for Children | $4,200 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,500 |
| The Orchard Evangelical Free Church | $3,000 |
| Foundry Church | $3,000 |
| Willow Creek Community Church | $3,000 |
| Cru | $3,000 |
| Intervarsity | $2,000 |
| The Orchard Evangelical Free Church | $1,000 |
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, $44k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 98% 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.
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.
18 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 13 since wound down; 7 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, 50% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $28k 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
- ICInterVarsity Christian FellowshipUSA7× · 2017–2023 · $42k · revenue +9%
- TCTHE COLUMBUS ACADEMY2× · 2022–2023 · $25k · revenue +12%
- COCASA OF MCHENRY COUNTY INC2× · 2024–2025 · $13k · revenue +0%
Funded once
- MDMISSIO DEI CHICAGOone grant, 2019 · $10k
- MBMIDAMERICA BAPTIST CONFERENCEone grant, 2020 · $10k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $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.
Christian Mission for the United Nations Community is a ministry aimed at leading the head of every nation and other top leaders to faith in Jesus Christ and helping them to walk in dependence upon God as they discharge the…
We minister to orphans and widows in their distress by transitioning children from orphanages into loving families. We do this through Christ- centered care, training and social work.
Children of Promise provides nutrition education and health care for children in need in developing nations.
We are compelled by god's word to provide security, education and the hope of jesus to children in south africa so they can thrive personally and impact their future families, communities and the kingdom of god.
To glorify the Lord Jesus Christ by ministering to orphans around the world by meeting spiritual, physical, emotional, and educational needs.
Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) exists to unite an alliance in shared initiatives that inspire and equip God's people to care effectively for vulnerable children and families, rooted always in Christian discipleship and the life of…
Christianity Today is a global community inspired by evangelical conviction to advance the stories and ideas of the kingdom of God. Our mission is to elevate the storytellers and sages of the global church.
Our purpose is to provide a safe, loving, Christian environment for children needing long-term care who lack a stable home environment due to circumstances beyond their control. We are committed to equipping each child to build meaningful…
As part of the body of Christ, to see that every young person in every people group in every nation has the opportunity to make an informed decision to be a follower of Jesus Christ and become a part of the local church.
The Orphan's Hands provides a safe home and education for orphaned youth at risk of being trafficked in high-risk countries while bringing the love and hope of Jesus.
Helping the hardest to reach people of North America Develop a relationship with Christ
Empowering orphaned and vulnerable children to break the cycles of extreme poverty, AIDS, and spiritual brokenness through family-based care and discipleship in Jesus Christ.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Water Missions International and the most unlike its peers is Casa of Mchenry County 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 32 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 9% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
14 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. 14 of the 43 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 InterVarsity Christian FellowshipUSA ↗
- Who funds The Orphanetwork ↗
- Who funds THE COLUMBUS ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds CASA OF MCHENRY COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds MISSION EURASIA ↗
- Who funds TRINITY OAKS CHRISTIAN ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds By The Hand Club For Kids ↗
- Who funds Created for More Ministries NFP ↗
- Who funds CARY GROVE FOOD PANTRY ↗
- Who funds DIRECT RELIEF ↗
- Who funds SAFE FAMILIES FOR CHILDREN ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds WATER MISSIONS INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds WARP CORPS ↗
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: AbbVie Foundation · Christian Community Foundation Inc · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Renaissance Charitable Foundation Inc · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · American Endowment Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation 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 Wristen Family 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.
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 Wristen Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Wristen Family 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.