· Private foundation
Ward Scholarship Fund
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 FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Marquette FBO GRANT BRAZZALE | $1,000 |
| University of Minnesota FBO CLAIRE BENZ | $1,000 |
| UW - MADISON FBO ANNILEE MOCHANY | $750 |
| UW - MADISON FBO SOPHIA KREMA | $750 |
| UW Stevens Point FBO TRYSTAN WITT | $750 |
| UW MADISON FBO ELIANA BRENN | $750 |
| UNIV OF NOTRE DAME FBO JOHN OSLAND | $660 |
| University of Wisconsin Eau Clair | $660 |
| University of Wisconsin La Crosse | $660 |
| ST NORBERT COLLEGE FBO JAKOB DUQAINE | $660 |
| UW Oshkosh FBO JAYDEN REAY | $600 |
| WABASH COLLEGE - FBO BEN DONALDSON | $600 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA | $600 |
| UW Stevens Point FBO MADELINE DELENE | $599 |
| UW MADISON FBO HENRY GRETEBECK | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY21–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 30% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +24% since the first grant, against +4% for the ones you funded once.
13 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down; 23 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, 12% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $13k went to new ones.
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
- UOUNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN MADISON3× · 2019–2023 · $9k
- UOUNIV OF WI - OSHKOSH3× · 2018–2020 · $4k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF WI - MADISON2× · 2018–2019 · $3k
Funded once
- PUPurdue Univsersity FBO WILLIAM WALSHone grant, 2022 · $3k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF WI - LACROSSEone grant, 2019 · $2k
- CUCedarville University FBO KADEN MILLERone grant, 2022 · $1k
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.
Enriched by the lasallian catholic heritage, saint mary's university of minnesota awakens, nurtures, and empowers learners to ethical lives of service and leadership.
Saint xavier university, a catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the sisters of mercy, educates persons to search for truth, think critically, communicate effectively and serve wisely and compassionately in support of human…
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
The mission of the university is to educate leaders for a global society who are strong in character and judgment, confident in their identity and vocation, and committed to service and justice.
As the national university of the catholic church in the united states, founded and sponsored by the bishops of the country with the approval of the holy see, the catholic university of america is committed to being a comprehensive…
Inspired by lutheran scholarly tradition and the liberal arts, augustana provides an education of enduring worth that challenges the intellect, fosters integrity and integrates faith with learning and service in a diverse world.
Xavier is a jesuit catholic university rooted in the liberal arts tradition. our mission is to educate each student intellectually, morally, and spiritually. we create learning opportunities through rigorous academic and professional…
Benedictine University is an inclusive academic community dedicated to teaching and learning, scholarship and service, truth and justice, as inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition, the social teaching of the Church, and the…
As a catholic university, mount st. mary's graduates ethical leaders who are inspired by a passion for learning and lead lives of significance in service to god and others.
Loyola University New Orleans, a Jesuit and Catholic institution of higher education, welcomes students of diverse backgrounds and prepares them to lead meaningful lives with and for others; to pursue truth, wisdom, and virtue; and to work…
As a jesuit catholic university committed to academic rigor, inclusive excellence, and care for the whole person, john carroll university inspires individuals of intellect and character to learn, lead and serve in the community and…
Lourdes university, rooted in catholic and franciscan traditions, provides a values-centered education that enriches lives and advances academic excellence through the integration of the liberal arts and professional studies.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is St Norbert College Inc and the most unlike its peers is American University. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
16 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. 16 of the 116 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.
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: Herb Kohl Educational Foundation Inc · Baird Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Ward Scholarship Fund 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.