· Private foundation
Trager Family Foundation Trust
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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
87% of Trager Family Foundation Trust’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Jewish Community Of Louisville Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 7 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2024, the last year Trager Family Foundation Trust named its own grantees at scale: 7 organizations, $253k. It is dated, not current.
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 FY2022–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k6 grants · $23k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $55k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $175k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| JEWISH COMMUNITY FEDERATION | $124,674 |
| LOUISVILLE BALLET | $50,000 |
| BELLARMINE UNIVERSITY | $30,000 |
| GILDA'S CLUB KENTUCKIANA | $25,000 |
| WELLSPRING | $7,000 |
| SWIM ACROSS AMERICA | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| SERENITY INC | $2,500 |
| JEWISH COMMUNITY OF LOUISVILLE | $2,500 |
| JEFFERSON COUNTY PUBLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY22–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 99% of your 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.
7 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 8 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call). Read against FY2024, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 36% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $83k 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
- BUBELLARMINE UNIVERSITY INCORPORATED4× · 2022–2025 · $119k · revenue +1%
- KDKENTUCKY DANCE COUNCIL INC DBA LOUISVILLE BALLET2× · 2022–2024 · $60k · revenue +51%
- GCGILDA'S CLUB KENTUCKIANA INC2× · 2022–2024 · $30k · revenue +37%
Funded once
- SASPEED ART MUSEUMgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $18k · revenue +31%
- KMKMAC MUSEUMone grant, 2023 · $13k · revenue -20%
- WSWHITNEY STRONG INCgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue +45%
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 represent our members, creating the environment and opportunity for economic prosperity and quality living in central kentucky.
Civiclex strengthens civic health in lexington, kentucky, by helping our community understand and get involved in local issues, connect with their neighbors and make decisions in a better way.
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…
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.
Lpm provides independent and courageous news, music and experiences that serve the needs and aspirations of our diverse communities.
The kentucky medical association provides physician advocacy through governmental interaction, legal intervention, and public education, as well as providing physician education through periodic workshops/seminars, and an annual convention…
To promote the development of tennis as a means of healthful recreation and physical fitness in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
To acquire, maintain, improve, leverage, manage, lease, and convey real and personal property for the benefit of the university of louisville.
Everything we do is market-focused and proactively promotes and protects the interests of the southeast dairy farm families.
To inspire and engage through the beauty, power and passion of dance
Louisville collegiate school inspires academic excellence, extraordinary character and global citizenship.
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 Kmac Museum. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
17 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. 17 of the 23 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 JEWISH COMMUNITY OF LOUISVILLE INC ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF LOUISVILLE INC ↗
- Who funds BELLARMINE UNIVERSITY INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY DANCE COUNCIL INC DBA LOUISVILLE BALLET ↗
- Who funds THE LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds GILDA'S CLUB KENTUCKIANA INC ↗
- Who funds SPEED ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds WELLSPRING INC ↗
- Who funds KMAC MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds Simmons College of Kentucky Inc ↗
- Who funds WHITNEY STRONG INC ↗
- Who funds Swim Across America Inc ↗
- Who funds MARCH OF DIMES INC ↗
- Who funds COMMONWEALTH FUND FOR KET INC ↗
- Who funds SERENITY INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER LOUISVILLE PRIDE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds JEFFERSON COUNTY PUBLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION 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: The Gheens Foundation Inc · Sociable Weaver Foundation Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Inc · Kindred Foundation Inc · Republic Bank Foundation Inc · The Brooke Brown Barzun Philanthropic Foundation Inc · Owsley Brown II Family Foundation Inc · Snowy Owl Foundation Inc · LG&E and Ku Foundation Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Corporate Depository Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Depository Inc · Mightycause Charitable 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 Trager Family Foundation Trust 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 Trust?
Find your warmest path to Trager Family Foundation Trust 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.