· Private foundation
W Stephenson Fnd
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k5 grants · $25k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $15k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $155k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MEDINA COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE | $80,000 |
| MEDINA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $75,000 |
| LEADERSHIP MEDINA COUNTY | $15,000 |
| WADSWORTH AREA HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $8,300 |
| OUR LADY HELP OF CHRISTIANS CATHOLIC | $7,000 |
| SECOND BAPTIST CHURCH | $5,000 |
| ORMACO INC | $3,000 |
| FELLOWSHIP BAPTIST CHURCH | $1,500 |
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 (FY17–17, $2k) 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 +47% since the first grant, against +27% for the ones you funded once.
22 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2025, 19 since wound down; 5 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, 48% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $102k 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
- LMLeadership Medina County9× · 2017–2025 · $154k · revenue +17% · 26% of their budget
- TCTHE CHILDREN'S CENTER OF MEDINA COUNTY5× · 2018–2024 · $51k · revenue +19%
- MSMAIN STREET MEDINA INC3× · 2019–2024 · $25k · revenue +98%
Funded once
- TSTHE SALVATION ARMYone grant, 2021 · $30k
- TSTHE SALVATION ARMYone grant, 2022 · $30k
- CLCHIPPEWA LAKE OHIO HISTORICAL SOCIETYone grant, 2024 · $25k
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.
Provide emergency food for those in need.
None
Encourage and promote industrial, economic, commercial and civic development of the city of medina ohio. lessen the burdens of government, combat community deterioration, and rehabilitate existing community deterioration by purchasing and…
Habitat for humanity of medina county, inc. unites volunteers with those in need of affordable housing. habitat for humanity also operates a restore retail store which offers donated building supplies for sale to the general public at…
The organization was established for the sole purpose of beautification, maintenance and preservation of spring grove cemetery and old town cemetery in medina, ohio in accordance with the 2018 master plan.
To promote the health and well-being of seniors in medina county so that none are left isolated or hungry.
The Friends of Medina County District Library support the library and its endeavors by focusing attention on programs and services, fostering public support and fundraising.
To prevent cruelty to, and the neglect of animals, enforce the application of laws, and distribute relative information to the general public.
Mid-Ohio Foodbanks mission is to end hunger one nourishing meal at a time while co-creating communities where everyone thrives.
To facilitate high quality outdoor recreational opportunities for all residents of medina and surrounding communities.
Fire nbsp;suppression nbsp;first nbsp;responders nbsp;and nbsp;emt nbsp;volunteers nbsp;the nbsp;medina nbsp;vfd nbsp;is nbsp;an nbsp;all-volunteer nbsp;nonprofit nbsp;organization nbsp;our nbsp;primary nbsp;response nbsp;area nbsp;is…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Feeding Medina County and the most unlike its peers is West Creek Conservancy. 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 26 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 — 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.
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 60 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 MEDINA COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Leadership Medina County ↗
- Who funds THE CHILDREN'S CENTER OF MEDINA COUNTY ↗
- Who funds MAIN STREET MEDINA INC ↗
- Who funds WEST CREEK CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds AKRON-CANTON REGIONAL FOODBANK ↗
- Who funds ORMACO INC ↗
- Who funds FEEDING MEDINA COUNTY ↗
- Who funds Friends of Medina County Parks Inc ↗
- Who funds CUPS CAFE INC ↗
- Who funds HOPE RECOVERY COMMUNITY ↗
- Who funds MEDINA MEOW FIX ↗
- Who funds MEDINA COUNTY ARTS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds REPLAY FOR KIDS ↗
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: Akron Community Foundation · The Westfield Insurance Foundation · Jackie & Bruce Davey Family Foundation · Feckley Charitable Foundation · Foe #2224 Charity Fund Inc · Tom and Jill Lincoln Foundation · The Clara Weiss Fund · The Cleveland Clinic Foundation Group Return · The Swagelok Foundation · American Newmedia Educational Fdn · The Wolff Foundation · The Cleveland 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 W Stephenson Fnd 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 W Stephenson Fnd?
Find your warmest path to W Stephenson Fnd 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.