· Public charity
Visitors Center Inc
To inspire residents and visitors to experience columbus and bartholomew county as an ideal destination for leisure, sports, and travel while sharing the unique character of our community to create memorable and meaningful experiences.
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.
The 11 grants below total $106,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $149,150 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $43,150 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 $10k6 grants · $44k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $62k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COLUMBUS AREA ARTS COUNCIL | $16,000 |
| BARTHOLOMEW COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $13,500 |
| YELLOW TRAIL MUSEUM | $12,000 |
| KIDSCOMMONS | $10,500 |
| INDIANA GIRLS WRESTLING LLC | $10,000 |
| MILL RACE THEATRE COMPANY | $9,000 |
| OFFICE OF DOWNTOWN DEVELOPMENT | $8,000 |
| COLUMBUS INDIANA PHILHARMONIC | $7,000 |
| GOOD SHEPHERD RADIO INC | $7,000 |
| ATTERBURY-BAKALAR AIR MUSEUM | $7,000 |
| COLUMBUS ROBOTICS | $6,000 |
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 (FY24–24, $9k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% 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 +22% since the first grant, against +16% for the ones you funded once.
10 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down; 4 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, 59% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $43k 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
- LCLandmark Columbus Foundation Inc3× · 2022–2024 · $118k · revenue +118%
- CSCOLUMBUS SCOTTISH FESTIVAL INC3× · 2017–2019 · $30k · revenue +38%
- HOHERITAGE OF HOPE3× · 2022–2024 · $26k · revenue +22%
Funded once
- HTHOOSIER TRAILS COUNCIL BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICAone grant, 2022 · $22k · revenue -15%
Indiana University Foundationgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $20k · revenue +65%- EPEDINBURGH POLICE DEPARTMENTone grant, 2019 · $14k
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.
The organization was established to support the heritage fund - the community foundation of bartholomew county, inc., the city of columbus and bartholomew county in indiana by preserving and maintaining land and buildings of historic or…
The mission of the columbus indiana architectural archives is to collect, conserve and promote the use of records that document the architectural engineering and arts associated with built environments of columbus, indiana.
Maintain and operate a museum to collect, preserve and display articles of our community history which is open to the public
To nurture a community where people can prosper in the business of music while contributing to columbus' overall cultural and economic growth.
Preserve historical structures, revitalize historic neighborhoods, educate the public about local history, advocate benefits derived from historic preservation
To provide financial support to the columbus public library
To facilitate the collection, preservation and education of the jewish history of central ohio.
Various programs promoting business and economic well being of the community.
Receive and provide contributions for charitable and educational activities
Stabilize neighborhoods through establishing financing, education, rehabilitation of existing housing and development of new housing
Empowering people. saving wildlife.
Archive History of Community
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Columbus Area Arts Council Inc and the most unlike its peers is Columbus Robotics 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 38 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 10% of your grantees by number, and just 4% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
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 29 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 HERITAGE FUND - THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF BARTHOLOMEW COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds Landmark Columbus Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS AREA ARTS COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds ATTERBURY-BAKALAR AIR MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS SCOTTISH FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds HERITAGE OF HOPE ↗
- Who funds HOOSIER TRAILS COUNCIL BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds Indiana University Foundation ↗
- Who funds Office of Downtown Development ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS PRO MUSICA INC DBA COLUMBUS INDIANA PHILHARMONIC ↗
- Who funds Good Shepherd Radio Inc ↗
- Who funds BARTHOLOMEW COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS ROBOTICS INC ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN CENTRAL NEIGHBORHOOD FAMILY CENTER ↗
- Who funds KIDSCOMMONS COLUMBUS COMMUNITY CHILDREN'S MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS CRAFT BEERFEST CO ↗
- Who funds Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana Inc ↗
- Who funds THE ARC OF BARTHOLOMEW COUNTY ↗
- Who funds CERA SPORTS CORPORATION INC ↗
- Who funds BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA ↗
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: Heritage Fund - the Community Foundation of Bartholomew County Inc · Clarence E Custer and Inez R Custer · Elizabeth Ruddick Nugent Foundation · United Way of Bartholomew County Inc · Carl Marshall Reeves and Mildred Almen Reeves Foundation Inc · Amazonsmile 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 Visitors Center 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.