How much did Ward Foundation grant in FY2024?

A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 82% of Ward Foundation’s grantee dollars go to organizations outside the IRS cause taxonomy (common for large international and research funders), so a chart would be mostly “unclassified” and misrepresent the portfolio.

02FY2024 · 29 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k21 grants · $52k
$10k–50k7 grants · $70k
$50k–250k1 grant · $50k

$3,000

Median grant

States reached

$4.4M

Total assets

Largest grants

Cure Search for Children$50,000
Camp Ta-Kum-Ta$10,000
Luke McGuire Memorial Scholarship$10,000
Harbor Camps$10,000
Camp One Step$10,000
Luke McGuire Memorial Scholarship$10,000
Luke McGuire Memorial Scholarship$10,000
Camp Can Do$10,000
Blossburg Memorial Library$6,000
Luke McGuire Memorial Scholarship$5,000
Misericordia Foundation$4,000
Catholic Charities$3,000
So Other's Might Eat (SOME)$3,000
Hephzibah Childrens Home$3,000
Barrett Township Fire Dept$3,000

02The need

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY17–24, $37k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10% — the area typically sits at 8%. 67% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.

03Your edge

repeat funding

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.

84%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$1.3M · 46 repeat orgs$253k to everyone else

46 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2024, 23 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.3M

$238k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+71%

+83%

Still filing today

35%

18%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

HealthHuman ServicesFood & NutritionRecreation & SportsHousing & ShelterEducationOther

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

BM
Blossburg Memorial Library
8× · 2017–2024 · $42k · revenue +20%
LS
Lovin' Spoonfuls Inc
3× · 2020–2023 · $39k · revenue +162%
OP
Oak Park River Forest Food Pantry
8× · 2017–2024 · $27k · revenue +156%

Funded once

SP
St Paul VI Catholic High School
one grant, 2019 · $50k
BA
Blossburg Area Swim Assoc
one grant, 2023 · $50k
BC
Boston Childrens Hospital Trust
one grant, 2023 · $25k

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

Open Arms Housing Inc

Open Arms Housings (OAH) mission is to provide permanent homes and ongoing support to women experiencing homelessness. Special care is taken to provide comprehensive mental health support to OAH clients.

Human Services

Ronald McDonald House Charities of

Ronald McDonald House Charities of Central Illinois (RMHCCI) provides a supportive place for families to stay while their child is receiving medical care, and supports programs that directly improve the health and well-being of children.…

—

Special Children's Charities

To promote, foster, and encourage physical and mental health improvement for children and adults in Chicago with intellectual and development disabilities.

—

St Francis House

Empowering families with chidren to achieve permanent and stable self-sufficiency by providing case management; nutritious meals; and educational, health and career resources; in a safe and secure environment.

Housing & Shelter

Baltimore Outreach Services Inc

Baltimore Outreach Services, Inc. is a 24-hour, 7 day per week shelter for women and their children, providing wrap around case management services and assistance with moving them to independent housing.

Human Services

Care Partners of Cook County

Care Partners of Cook County provides support and companionship on the journey of aging and serious illness

Human Services

My Sisters House Inc

Services for abused women & their children

—

Equal Hope

Women's lives by eliminating health disparities in illinois, originally through the lens of breast cancer and expanding more recently to dditional women's cancers and healthcare more broadly through medical homes. we address women's health…

Health

Boston Health Care for the Homeless

The mission of the boston health care for the homeless program (bhchp) is to ensure unconditionally equitable and dignified access to the highest quality health care for all individuals and families experiencing homlessness in our…

Human Services

St Gerard House

Our Mission is to help individuals with autism and their families experience more joy and achieve meaningful life outcomes by providing evidence-based therapies, innovative programs and continuous advocacy.

Education

Harvest Home Inc

Harvest Home transforms the lives of homeless, pregnant women and their children by providing housing, support, and programs that equip women to become great mothers.

Human Services

Our Children's Homestead

To support and strengthen children and families in their toughest, most vulnerable moments.

Human Services

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Caring Unlimited and the most unlike its peers is St Matthews House 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 32 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 5% lost their exemption, against 11% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund

1/22

the rest of the field

11%

206,163/1,819,543

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.

04the grantee network

20 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

19/20

Grantees still filing

16/20

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Other$1,298,195Health$86,253Food & Nutrition$65,500Education$41,800Human Services$36,500Recreation & Sports$23,000Animals$20,000Housing & Shelter$8,500

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.

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.

Jpmorgan Chase FoundationNY14.9× affinity9 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Good Heart Work Smart Foundation · Aetna Foundation Inc · AbbVie Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · American Endowment Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Network for Good · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund

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 organisation Ward 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

5get no government money at all

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–90%

typical government reliance, FY20–24

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. 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.

05Through Plinth

Through Plinth

Your grantmaking, live and operational

This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: Camp Can Do 2014.

Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk

Financial management

low risk

~37 months of operating runway; revenue contracted over 7 filed years.

Track record & reputation

low risk

7 years of Form 990 filings, still active.

Legal standing

low risk

US 501(c)(3); EIN 462995488 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.

Governance

Live in Plinth

Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.

Compliance & sanctions

Live in Plinth

OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.

Program capacity

Live in Plinth

Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.

Live · Plinth’s real DD engine

Run the actual assessment on Camp Can Do 2014, cold from public data.

Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.

Post-award monitoring · continuous checks

On trackFinancial stability— Roughly 37 months of cash on hand.
WatchSustained operations— Filing through 2023; revenue contracted over the period.
On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 8% of their budget — diversified.
Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.

What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.

Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing

Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro

How do I get to Ward Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Ward Foundation through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.

Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.

Ward Foundation

What you funded, over time

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

20 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to Ward Foundation?

More from the funding graph

Ward Foundation

What you funded, over time

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

20 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to Ward Foundation?

More from the funding graph