· Private foundation
Ward Family Foundation Attn Mr Bill Ward
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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| YMCA CINCINNATI | $5,000 |
| AYE | $5,000 |
| LA FOOD BANK | $2,500 |
| PARKS CONSERVANCY | $2,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,500 |
| CARNEGIE ARTS EDUCATION | $1,000 |
| RETTS SYNDROME FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| CINCINNATI PUBLIC RADIO | $1,000 |
| EWS | $750 |
| Individual grant recipient | $500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $500 |
| CASA | $500 |
| JWC | $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 (FY17–20, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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 +42% since the first grant, against +21% for the ones you funded once.
18 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 9 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, 19% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $19k 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
- SFSAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART8× · 2017–2024 · $21k · revenue +37%
- CWCINCINNATI WORKS2× · 2017–2018 · $6k · revenue +19%
- BTBREAKTHROUGH T1D2× · 2020–2021 · $3k · revenue +42%
Funded once
- CCCHIRST COLLEGE NURSINGone grant, 2024 · $40k
- OSOptim-All Servicesgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $5k · revenue +437%
- TCTHE CINCINNATI WOMAN'S CLUBgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $5k · revenue +126%
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.
Cincinnati Youth Collaborative ("CYC") empowers young people to overcome barriers and excel in education, career, and life.
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…
Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra (CCO) creates intimate, transformative experiences that connect the musically curious.
Cincinnati museum center inspires people of all ages to learn more about our world through science, regional history, and educational, engaging and meaningful experiences.
The World Affairs Council, a 501(c)3 nonprofit, is the bridge that connects the world to one of America's most vibrant regions. Through Global education, International exchange, and cultural awareness initiatives, the council strengthens…
Empower the people of greater cleveland to achieve success through technology, innovation and connected community.
To create community driven public art and launch careers for youth and artists.
City year helps students and schools succeed, while preparing the next generation of civically engaged leaders who can work across lines of difference. partnering with teachers, teams of city year americorps members cultivate learning…
In fiscal year 2025, the agency operated an americorps maker fellowship, placing 7 americorps vista members at 6 different education focused organizations in ca, ma, and ny. americorps members worked on capacity building projects to expand…
Be a catalyst! Ignite our community's passion for nature and science.
As a trusted and connected partner, we inspire generous people to invest in a more equitable and vibrant region now and for generations to come.
To empower Cincinnati entrepreneurs to launch bold, scalable startups; and we work to improve the odds of those startups growing into transformational companies.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The San Francisco Foundation and the most unlike its peers is San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. 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 41 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% 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.
29 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. 29 of the 64 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 SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART ↗
- Who funds GOLDEN GATE NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds CINCINNATI WORKS ↗
- Who funds Optim-All Services ↗
- Who funds THE CINCINNATI WOMAN'S CLUB ↗
- Who funds Junior League of Cincinnati ↗
- Who funds BREAKTHROUGH T1D ↗
- Who funds CatchLight ↗
- Who funds SUMMER SEARCH ↗
- Who funds Education Outside ↗
- Who funds Community Resource Center Inc ↗
- Who funds BLACK SWAMP AREA COUNCIL INC BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE VOTER PARTICIPATION CENTER ↗
- Who funds Cincinnati Public Radio Inc ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds DJERASSI RESIDENT ARTISTS PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds STEPPING STONES INC ↗
- Who funds The Children's Home of Cincinnati Ohio ↗
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 Greater Cincinnati Foundation · Ge Aerospace Foundation · L & L Nippert Charitable Foundation Inc Attn Carter F Randolph Phd · Carol Ann and Ralph V Haile Jr Foundation · Johnson Charitable Gift Fund · The Thomas J Emery Memorial · Charles H Dater Foundation Inc · Elsa M Heisel Sule Charitable Trust 2005 · Robert H & Susan F Castellini Foundation · John a Schroth Family Char Tr · Duke Energy Foundation · Charles Scott Riley III 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 Ward Family Foundation Attn Mr Bill Ward 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.
- Save the Children Federation Inc — 30% 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.
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