· Private foundation
Wayne and Sharon Wellman Family Foundation
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.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k11 grants · $20k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $31k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SAUGATUCK CENTER FOR THE | $17,000 |
| LEE HEALTH FOUNDATION | $14,000 |
| HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | $5,000 |
| HILLSDALE COLLEGE | $3,000 |
| CHRISTIAN NEIGHBORS INC | $3,000 |
| CHILDRENS ADVOCACY CENTER | $3,000 |
| ST JUDE | $1,000 |
| CAFE OF LIFE | $1,000 |
| PINEY WOODS SCHOOL | $1,000 |
| MASON CLASSICAL ACADEMY | $1,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT | $1,000 |
| IMERMAN ANGELS | $936 |
| ST MATHHEWS HOUSE | $200 |
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 (FY17–18, $1k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 45% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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 +140% since the first grant, against +59% for the ones you funded once.
13 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 6 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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4k 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
- SCSAUGATUCK CENTER FOR THE ARTS INC7× · 2017–2023 · $74k · revenue +93%
GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY5× · 2017–2021 · $25k · revenue +140%
JUDICIAL WATCH INC2× · 2021–2023 · $3k · revenue +3%
Funded once
- LHLEE HEALTH CANCER CENTERone grant, 2022 · $11k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $4k
- VOVILLAGE OF DOUGLAS PARK PROJECTone grant, 2020 · $3k
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.
A champion for animals since 1967, PAWS is a nationally recognized leader - rehabilitating injured and orphaned wildlife, sheltering and adopting homeless cats and dogs, and educating people to make a better world for animals and people.
The friends are dedicated to the rescue, protection, and adoption of companion animals in need while inspiring the human-animal bond. we meet our mission by:-saving 100% of healthy and treatable animals.-providing high-quality animal care…
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
Naples zoo is accredited by the american zoo & aquarium association (aza) and has numerous animal exhibits placed on its 45-acre site. (continued on schedule o)each exhibit is unique and designed to simulate typical conditions for the…
Saint anselm is a catholic, benedictine college providing all of its students a distinctive liberal arts education that incorporates opportunities for professional and career preparation. it does so in a learning community that encourages…
To improve and save lives through compassionate care, community engagement and advocacy for animals.
Animal care sanctuary's lifesaving mission as a no kill organization envisions a community that promotes turning compassion into action for companion animals by: 1.) adopting healthy pet companions into loving homes. 2.) promoting the…
As america's first animal shelter, founded in 1869, women's humane society dba women's animal center (wac), assists people in the community, saves the lives of animals, and improves the health of pets through its shelter and adoptions…
Danbury animal welfare society , inc.(daws) is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of animals in our community and beyond. we promote responsible pet guardianship and the humane treatment of animals, and work toward…
Our goal is to sustainably improve animal welfare, provide veterinary care, and improve veterinary education globally. in order to achieve this goal, we work in over 10 countries, across 5 continents, supporting local people and animals,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wounded Warrior Project Inc and the most unlike its peers is Hillsdale College. 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 31 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% 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.
25 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. 25 of the 42 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 SAUGATUCK CENTER FOR THE ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds HILLSDALE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds JUDICIAL WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds GARFIELD PARK CONSERVATORY ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds K9S FOR WARRIORS INC ↗
- Who funds CAFE OF LIFE INC ↗
- Who funds MASON CLASSICAL ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds TURNING POINT USA INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT MERCY ↗
- Who funds Piney Woods School ↗
- Who funds BONITA BAY VETERANS COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds NORTHERN INDIANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds IMERMAN ANGELS ↗
- Who funds GFWC NAPLES WOMAN'S CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds HOPE HOSPICE AND COMMUNITY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds GRAND RAPIDS COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds PAWS CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds PAWS INC ↗
- Who funds 4 PAWS LAKESHORE ↗
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: Collier Community Foundation Inc · WK Kellogg Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn 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 Wayne and Sharon Wellman Family 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.
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% of income from government
- K9S for Warriors Inc — 0% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Wayne and Sharon Wellman Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Wayne and Sharon Wellman Family Foundation 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.