· Private foundation
Verna O Canova Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k7 grants · $37k
- $10k–50k19 grants · $230k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| JAMES P HARRINGTON ORGANIZATION | $20,000 |
| KIDSPEACE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL | $15,000 |
| MANITO LIFE CENTER | $15,000 |
| CAPE WELLNESS COLLABORATIVE | $15,000 |
| COMMUNITY MUSIC SCHOOL | $15,000 |
| REPERTORY DANCE THEATRE | $15,000 |
| VIA OF THE LEHIGH VALLEY | $15,000 |
| GUARDIAN SUPPORT AGENCY INC | $10,000 |
| COMMUNITY BIKE WORKS | $10,000 |
| PROJECT OF EASTON | $10,000 |
| BLOOM FOR WOMEN INC | $10,000 |
| RIPPLE COMMUNITY INC | $10,000 |
| GOOD SHEPHERD REHABILITATION NET | $10,000 |
| LEHIGH VALLEY ITALIAN BAND | $10,000 |
| MEALS ON WHEELS OF LEHIGH COUNTY | $10,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $345k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 78% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +19% since the first grant, against -10% for the ones you funded once.
38 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2024, 17 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 87% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $35k 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
- MLMANITO LIFE CENTER8× · 2017–2024 · $265k · revenue +21%
- VOVia of the Lehigh Valley Inc8× · 2017–2024 · $190k · revenue +32%
- CMCOMMUNITY MUSIC SCHOOL8× · 2017–2024 · $145k · revenue +40%
Funded once
- MGMASS GENERAL BRIGHAM INCORPORATEDone grant, 2017 · $58k
- ASAllentown School District Foundationone grant, 2020 · $42k · revenue -38%
- FOFRIENDS OR RELATIVES WITH AUTISM & RELATED DISABILITIESgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $35k · revenue ×15
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.
Melmark is a human services provider with premier private special education schools, professional development, training, and research centers. melmark is committed to enhancing the lives of individuals within diverse communities with…
Philhaven promotes hope, healing and wholeness through the provision of behavioral resources.
Provide quality programs and facilities to help the individuals with intellectual developmental disabilities entrusted to our care live with purpose, dignity and to provide opportunities to grow and function at their full potential and as…
To enrich the quality of life in Lancaster County by building vibrant and inclusive communities connecting arts, culture, education, and economic vitality.
The mission: the theatre is dedicated to providing high-quality performing arts to enhance the quality of life in the lehigh valley community. civic carries out its mission by presenting affordable theatre, music and art-house cinema, and…
Elwyn makes life better for people with developmental and behavioral health challenges.
To build independence and self-confidence in children and youth with disabilities by engaging them in vocational, recreational, social, and educational enrichment activities, while connecting families to resources. variety serves children…
Potential engages children and adults with autism in personalized programs that help them realize their full potential.
The arc of centre county embodies and protects the human rights of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and practices person-centered planning which actively supports their full inclusion and participation in the…
We partner with people with disabilities, people with other barriers, young adults, children, and families to pursue their hopes and dreams through strengthening workplace abilities, building life skills, and developing meaningful…
Milestone provides quality, life-enhancing services that promote wellness and the development of human potential to people with behavioral health and intellectual challenges. each year milestone serves approximately 3,500 residents of…
Incorporated on july 2, 1951, the allentown symphony association (asa) is the operating organization of the allentown symphony orchestra (aso)and miller symphony hall (msh). the mission of the asa is to provide a first-class orchestra and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Ripple Community Inc and the most unlike its peers is Aspire to Autonomy Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 35 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 6% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
34 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. 34 of the 49 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 MANITO LIFE CENTER ↗
- Who funds Via of the Lehigh Valley Inc ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY MUSIC SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS OF LEHIGH COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds THE LITERACY CENTER ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF ALLENTOWN INC ↗
- Who funds REPERTORY DANCE THEATRE ↗
- Who funds ALLENTOWN BAND INC ↗
- Who funds RIPPLE COMMUNITY INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY BIKE WORKS ↗
- Who funds ShareCare Faith in Action ↗
- Who funds CAPE WELLNESS COLLABORATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds MOSSER VILLAGE FAMILY CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE BAUM SCHOOL OF ART ↗
- Who funds Allentown School District Foundation ↗
- Who funds James P Harrington Organization Inc ↗
- Who funds THIRD STREET ALLIANCE FOR WOMEN AND CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds BACH ROOTS FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OR RELATIVES WITH AUTISM & RELATED DISABILITIES ↗
- Who funds GOOD SHEPHERD REHABILITATION NETWORK ↗
- Who funds KIDSPEACE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL ↗
- Who funds ASPIRE TO AUTONOMY INC ↗
- Who funds TOUCHSTONE THEATRE ↗
- Who funds The Seed Farm ↗
- Who funds KIDSPEACE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE ALLENTOWN PARKS ↗
- Who funds BLOOM FOR WOMEN INC ↗
- Who funds Flint Hill Farm Educational Center Inc ↗
- Who funds THE GREAT ALLENTOWN FAIR FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LEHIGH VALLEY COMMUNITY BROADCASTERS ASSOCIATION 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: Harry C Trexler Estate · Lehigh Valley Community Foundation · The Century Fund Trust · United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley · Air Products Foundation · Ppl Foundation · Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust · The Rider-Pool Foundation · John a and Margaret Post Foundation · The Donald B and Dorothy L Stabler Foundation · Leona Gruber Charitable Trust · Martin Guitar 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 Verna O Canova 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.