· Private foundation
Wayne Swanson Charitable Fund
Its FY2021 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 FY2017–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- Under $10k2 grants · $7k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $137k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $75k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| EARTH JUSTICE | $75,000 |
| TROUT UNLIMITED | $45,000 |
| STEAMBOAT ART MUSEUM | $20,000 |
| NATURE CONSERVANCY | $15,000 |
| OPERA STEAMBOAT | $15,000 |
| KUNC | $12,000 |
| COLORADO CATTLEMAN'S LAND TRUST | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| ROCKY MOUNTAIN YOUTH CORPS | $10,000 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB | $5,000 |
| LIFT UP OF ROUTT COUNTY | $2,000 |
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 (FY17–21, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 6%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 0% of those 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.
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 +82% since the first grant, against +6% for the ones you funded once.
8 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2021, 1 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (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 FY2021, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $25k 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
EARTHJUSTICE4× · 2017–2021 · $150k · revenue +82%- TUTROUT UNLIMITED INC4× · 2017–2021 · $90k · revenue +133%
- CRCOMMUNITY RADIO FOR NORTHERN COLORADO4× · 2017–2021 · $25k · revenue +55%
Funded once
- RMROCKY MOUNTAIN PUBLIC MEDIA INCone grant, 2017 · $3k · revenue -11%
- BABOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF NW COLORADOone grant, 2017 · $3k
- FOFRIENDS OF THE ORCHESTRAone grant, 2017 · $2k · revenue +6%
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.
Living rivers promotes river restoration through mobilization by articulating conservation and alternative management strategies to the public. seeking to revive the natural habitat and spirit of rivers by undoing the extensive damage done…
Colorado open lands' mission is to preserve the significant open lands and natural heritage of colorado through private and public partnerships, innovative land conservation, and strategic leadership.
To conserve, protect and restore colorado's coldwater fisheries and their watersheds.
Vision: a healthy and resilient big thompson watershed benefitting fish, wildlife, and the people itserves through collaborative efforts for current and future generations. mission: working with others to take action that protects and…
To restore water to colorado's rivers.
Public interest law firm - the western environmental law center uses the power of the law to foster thriving, resilient western u.s. lands, waters, wildlife, and communities in the face of a changing climate. we envision a thriving west,…
Rocky mountain wild works to protect, connect, and restore wildlife and wild lands in the southern rocky mountain region. we work to secure the biodiversity of the mountains, plains, and desert ecosystems of colorado, wyoming, utah, and…
Caltrout's mission is ensuring healthy water and resilient wild fish for a better california. we share a common vision of a california where healthy waters flow from headwaters to sea. where the diversity and resilience of our waters and…
To conserve functioning salmon/steelhead eco-system at watershed levels, integrate angling activities with basic scientific research, collect raw data, monitor environmental functions, salmon/steelhead population dynamics, public…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Rocky Mountain Public Media Inc and the most unlike its peers is Friends of the Orchestra. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 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. 10 of the 15 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 EARTHJUSTICE ↗
- Who funds TROUT UNLIMITED INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds STEAMBOAT ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY RADIO FOR NORTHERN COLORADO ↗
- Who funds OPERA STEAMBOAT ↗
- Who funds ROCKY MOUNTAIN YOUTH CORPS ↗
- Who funds Lift Up of Routt County ↗
- Who funds ROCKY MOUNTAIN PUBLIC MEDIA INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE ORCHESTRA ↗
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: Colorado Gives Foundation · Craig-Scheckman Family Foundation · The Duffey Foundation Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Swanson Charitable 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Wayne Swanson Charitable Fund?
Find your warmest path to Wayne Swanson Charitable Fund 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.