· Public charity
United Way of the Columbia Gorge
To help care for the people of the columbia river gorge by identifying human service needs, raising funds, distributing and coordinating resources,promoting volunteerism, and helping to solve community problems.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 20 grants below total $311,814 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $354,585 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $42,771 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k5 grants · $34k
- $10k–50k15 grants · $278k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COLUMBIA GORGE FOOD BANK | $28,856 |
| WAGAP PROGRAMS | $27,370 |
| SAFESPACE CHILDREN'S ADVOCACY CENTER | $24,821 |
| COLUMBIA GORGE CASA | $24,495 |
| SKAMANIA COUNTY COUNCIL ON DVSA | $21,275 |
| HELPING HANDS AGAINST VIOLENCE | $21,112 |
| THE DALLES COMMUNITY BACKPACK PROGRAM | $17,729 |
| FISH FOOD BANK | $17,729 |
| THE DALLES MEALS ON WHEELS | $17,729 |
| YOUTH EMPOWERMENT SHELTER | $17,403 |
| SIX RIVERS RESOLUTION CENTER | $14,183 |
| KLICKITAT COUNTY SENIOR SERVICES | $12,880 |
| HOOD RIVER VALLEY ADULT CENTER | $10,963 |
| THE DALLES FARMERS MARKET | $10,638 |
| CULTURE SEED | $10,638 |
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 (FY18–25, $37k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 68% 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.
34 repeat relationships — 17 still active in FY2025, 17 since wound down; 3 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, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $20k 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
- HHHELPING HANDS AGAINST VIOLENCE INC8× · 2018–2025 · $117k · revenue +88%
- YEYOUTH EMPOWERMENT SHELTER8× · 2018–2025 · $97k · revenue +396%
- CGCOLUMBIA GORGE CASA3× · 2023–2025 · $58k · revenue +55%
Funded once
- WFWGAP FOOD BANKone grant, 2018 · $15k
- HVHRC VETERAN SERVICE OFFICEone grant, 2021 · $12k
- CGCOL GORGE CHILDRENS ADVOCACY CNTRone grant, 2018 · $12k
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.
Clackamas service center is an inclusive, "one-stop" community center for individuals and families seeking food relief and resources for improved health, dignity, and stability.
Enhancing lives and building communities by providing transportation and nutrition services.
To help families with children in our community who are situationally homeless achieve sustainable independence through a community based response by providing temporary housing, usually 60-90 days, along with case management.
Head start & other children services
To protect children, support families, and bring hope and healing through compassionate, coordinated, and child-centered advocacy, through specialized programs and services, such as multi-disciplinary team coordination, forensic…
Provide service to assist individuals and families with food utility assistance and collaborate with other community agencies.
To provide full day care services for children of any race ranging from 6 weeks to 6 years old. migrant children receive preference. services include education, meals, and medical attention.
Advocacy and care of physically and sexually abused children in lasalle county. we work with the court system in determining the best placement for children.
Daycare for children ages 2 1/2 to 9, including a four year old Kindergarten program.
Providing meals to the senior citizens at the meal site and with home deliveries.
Enable frail seniors to maintain their independence at home by providing them with high quality, nutritious meals that are cost effective, prepared in West Contra Costa County, delivered by caring drivers and administered by local…
To provide child care food programs participants with three healthy meals a day. the program prov
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mid-Columbia Childrens Council Inc and the most unlike its peers is Back Pack for Kids. 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 20 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 5% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
19 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. 19 of the 47 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 HELPING HANDS AGAINST VIOLENCE INC ↗
- Who funds YOUTH EMPOWERMENT SHELTER ↗
- Who funds SOUTH WASCO YOUTH PROGRAMS INC ↗
- Who funds COLUMBIA GORGE CASA ↗
- Who funds THE DALLES MEALS ON WHEELS INC ↗
- Who funds BACK PACK FOR KIDS ↗
- Who funds FISH Food Bank ↗
- Who funds COLUMBIA GORGE CHILDRENS ADVOCACY CENTER ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS PEOPLE INC ↗
- Who funds THE DALLES FARMERS MARKET INC ↗
- Who funds SMART READING ↗
- Who funds CULTURESEED INC ↗
- Who funds MID-COLUMBIA CHILDRENS COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds HOOD RIVER SENIOR CITIZENS INC ↗
- Who funds NEW HOPE FARMS ↗
- Who funds SKAMANIA COUNTY COUNCIL ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT ↗
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: Greenfish Foundation · The Oregon Community Foundation · Providence Health & Services - Oregon · The Roundhouse Foundation · The Ford Family Foundation · McGeer Family Foundation · Gorge Community Foundation · Meyer Memorial Trust · Columbia Gorge Health Council · First Interstate BancSystem Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving 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 United Way of the Columbia Gorge 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Mid-Columbia Childrens Council Inc — 91% of income from government
- Youth Empowerment Shelter — 65% of income from government
- Helping Hands Against Violence Inc — 48% of income from government
- Mid-Columbia Community Action Council — 43% of income from government
- Columbia Gorge Childrens Advocacy Center — 12% of income from government
- The Dalles Meals On Wheels Inc — 5% of income from government
- Smart Reading — 3% of income from government
- Columbia Gorge Casa — 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.