· Private foundation
Van Aken 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.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k13 grants · $48k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $13k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FAMILY SVC ASSOC OF BUCKS COUNTY | $12,500 |
| TRENTON AREA SOUP KITCHEN | $7,500 |
| PHILADELPHIA RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE | $6,000 |
| MERCER STREET FRIENDS | $5,000 |
| MIGHTY WRITERS | $5,000 |
| FAMILY SVC ASSOC OF BUCKS COUNTY | $5,000 |
| MUSICOPIA | $5,000 |
| NATIONAL IMMIGRATION PROJECT | $5,000 |
| BEYOND THE BARS | $2,000 |
| ASAP | $2,000 |
| NATL GIRLS COLLABORATIVE PROJECT | $2,000 |
| WELCOMING THE STRANGER | $1,500 |
| CODED BY KIDS | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $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, $29k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 21% 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.
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +73% since the first grant, against +41% for the ones you funded once.
23 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2025, 11 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; $1k 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
- MIMUSICOPIA INC9× · 2017–2025 · $42k · revenue +359%
Philabundance8× · 2017–2024 · $41k · revenue +101%
TASK Inc Trenton Area Soup Kitchen Inc9× · 2017–2025 · $38k · revenue +140%
Funded once
- URUNICEF-PUERTO RICO SUPPORTone grant, 2017 · $4k
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INCone grant, 2022 · $3k · revenue +13%
UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEFone grant, 2022 · $3k · revenue -21%
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.
Climate catalyst sparks collective action to tackle the biggest climate challenges we face today: cutting emissions in heavy industries.
Philadelphia works, inc. develops and manages smart workforce solutions that respond to business needs and increases economic opportunity for all philadelphia residents.
Pidc plans and implements economic development initiatives (see schedule o) which enhance the competitive environment, generate jobs and produce higher tax ratables throughout philadelphia.
Improve the food value chain in developing countries by mobilizing corporate volunteers to share knowledge and expertise with small and growing food processors.
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
To launch breakthrough climate mitigation efforts by identifying, supporting, and unleashing innovative leaders with transformative strategies.
United way's mission is to end intergenerational poverty in our region by harnessing, leveraging and strategically investing the collective power of donors, advocates and volunteers, to help individuals and families break the cycle of…
Visit philadelphia is our name and our mission. as the region's official tourism marketing agency, we build greater philadelphia's image, drive visitation and boost the economy.
Pact is a nonprofit organization that builds evidence-based, data-driven, and community-led solutions for human development (continued in schedule o)
See schedule oustelecom exists to ensure members can compete, grow and thrive to build a world where families, enterprises and communities are connected through the power of broadband.our member companies have committed a considerable…
Devworks international is dedicated to a society where all people enjoy the freedom to pursue their own sustainable development. we contribute to this by strengthening the capacity of local organizations.
The philadelphia school educates children for a future that is impossible to know but not impossible to shape. learn here. go anywhere.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Philabundance and the most unlike its peers is Natural Resources Defense Council 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 39 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 — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
23 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. 23 of the 37 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 MUSICOPIA INC ↗
- Who funds Philabundance ↗
- Who funds TASK Inc Trenton Area Soup Kitchen Inc ↗
- Who funds MIGHTY WRITERS ↗
- Who funds RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES OF THE PHILADELPHIA REGION ↗
- Who funds THE UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS INC ↗
- Who funds FAMILY SERVICE ASSOCIATION OF BUCKS COUNTY ↗
- Who funds WELCOMING THE STRANGER INC ↗
- Who funds BEYOND THE BARS INC ↗
- Who funds POWER INTERFAITH INC ↗
- Who funds TRAVELERS AID SOCIETY OF PHILADELPHIA ↗
- Who funds Solutions Project Inc ↗
- Who funds TREES FOR THE FUTURE INC ↗
- Who funds CODED BY ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF ↗
- Who funds BRISTOL RIVERSIDE THEATRE CO INC ↗
- Who funds ACHIEVEABILITY ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONALITIES SERVICE CENTER OF PHILADELPHIA ↗
- Who funds THE ALLIANCE FOR CLIMATE PROTECTION ↗
- Who funds PLAYHOUSE ARTISTS ↗
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 Philadelphia Foundation · Connelly Foundation · The William Penn Foundation · The Patricia Kind Family Foundation · Scattergood Behavioral Health Foundation · Henrietta Tower Wurts Memorial Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Charities Aid Foundation America · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · The Bank of America Charitable 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 Van Aken 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.