· Private foundation
Trager Family Foundation Inc
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
96% of Trager Family Foundation Inc’s FY2021 grant dollars went to The Community Foundation Of Louisville Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2021 names 13 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- Under $10k8 grants · $32k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $119k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
- $250k+2 grants · $5.1M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF LOUISVILLE | $4,752,900 |
| JEWISH COMMUNITY OF LOUISVILLE | $375,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION | $50,000 |
| UNITED JEWISH CAMPAIGN | $26,173 |
| BELLARMINE UNIVERSITY | $20,000 |
| SPALDING UNIVERSITY | $20,000 |
| SPEED ART MUSEUM | $17,500 |
| LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA ENDOWMENT | $15,000 |
| THE LEUKEMIA AND LYMPHOMA SOCIETY | $10,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| WATERFRONT BOTANICAL GARDENS | $7,500 |
| KIDS CANCER ALLIANCE | $5,320 |
| LOUISVILLE PUBLIC MEDIA | $5,000 |
| PILLAR | $5,000 |
| KENTUCKY WATERWAY ALLIANCE | $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 (FY20–21, $12k) land where the poverty rate runs at 6%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 13% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
10 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2021, 0 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (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 FY2021, 73% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $54k 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
- UOUniversity of Louisville Athletic Association2× · 2020–2021 · $100k · revenue +13%
- SUSPALDING UNIVERSITY INC2× · 2020–2021 · $40k · revenue +4%
- LOLOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA ENDOWMENT INC2× · 2020–2021 · $30k · revenue +114%
Funded once
- LOLOUISVILLE OLMSTED PARKS CONSERVANCY INone grant, 2020 · $25k · revenue -19%
- NHNORTON HOSPITAL FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $7k
- WIWELLSPRING INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $6k · revenue +39%
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.
To improve the quality of life for all kentuckians through research, education and advocacy on important policy issues facing the commonwealth.
To provide effective advocacy for the financial services industry both in kentucky and on a national level; to serve as a reliable and responsive source of information and education about areas of interest to the industry; and to provide a…
Drive equitable investment in our public parks to improve the health and wellbeing of the entire community.
Louisville collegiate school inspires academic excellence, extraordinary character and global citizenship.
To support grassroots organizing, leadership development & public education around important public policy. ky coalition seeks to promote active citizen participation in the democratic process.
As an active partner, leader and catalyst, we will assist african americans, other minority groups and the disadvantaged attain social and economic equality and stability through direct services and advocacy.
Jefferson national parks association provides quality educational products and related services that enhance public understanding and appreciation of america's national parks, public lands and historic places.
To attract, create, and host quality sporting events in the louisville area that increase economic vitality, enhance the quality of life, promote healthy lifestyles, and brand louisville as a great place to live, work, and play.
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
To acquire, maintain, improve, leverage, manage, lease, and convey real and personal property for the benefit of the university of louisville.
Broadens the perspectives of current and emerging leaders through experiential education that inspires them to advance kentucky.
The kentucky college of art and design opens the door to a creative and productive life through an undergraduate education in the contemporary arts.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Community Foundation of Louisville Inc and the most unlike its peers is Kentucky Waterways Alliance Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
20 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. 20 of the 25 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 COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF LOUISVILLE INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH COMMUNITY OF LOUISVILLE INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds University of Louisville Athletic Association ↗
- Who funds SPALDING UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA ENDOWMENT INC ↗
- Who funds LOUISVILLE OLMSTED PARKS CONSERVANCY IN ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY PUBLIC RADIO INC ↗
- Who funds BELLARMINE UNIVERSITY INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds SPEED ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds WATERFRONT BOTANICAL GARDENS INC ↗
- Who funds KIDS CANCER ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds APPLE PATCH COMMUNITY INC ↗
- Who funds WELLSPRING INC ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY WATERWAYS ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN LOUISVILLE SECTION ↗
- Who funds World Affairs Council of Kentucky S ↗
- Who funds BLESSINGS IN A BACKPACK INC ↗
- Who funds BIRMINGHAM JEWISH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY HUMANE SOCIETY - ANIMAL RESCUE ↗
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: The Community Foundation of Louisville Inc · Snowy Owl Foundation Inc · Republic Bank Foundation Inc · The Gheens Foundation Inc · Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels Inc · LG&E and Ku Foundation Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Corporate Depository Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Depository Inc · V V Cooke Foundation Corporation · Blue Grass Community Foundation Inc · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Baird 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 Trager Family 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 Trager Family Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Trager Family 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.