· Private foundation
The Wells 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 FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k8 grants · $32k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $116k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $65k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| HOLY TRINITY | $65,000 |
| SPEED ART MUSEUM | $44,000 |
| FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $32,000 |
| SAINT XAVIER HIGH SCHOOL | $10,000 |
| SACRED HEART ACADEMY ANNUAL FUND | $10,000 |
| JUNIOR ACHIEVENMENT OF KENTUCKIANA | $10,000 |
| CATHOLIC SERVICES APPEAL | $10,000 |
| LOST TREE FOUNDATION | $7,500 |
| VIRGINIA CHANCE SCHOOL | $6,000 |
| MAYFIELD SENIOR SCHOOL OF THE HOLY CHILD JESUS | $5,000 |
| GILDA'S CLUB | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $4,000 |
| RIVER FIELDS | $2,500 |
| THE NICHOLSON PROJECT | $1,000 |
| SIGNATURE THEATRE | $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 (FY22–24, $21k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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.
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 +18% since the first grant, against -16% for the ones you funded once.
18 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 6 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, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $27k 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
- SASPEED ART MUSEUM5× · 2021–2025 · $124k · revenue +18%
- CLCEDAR LAKE FOUNDATION INC3× · 2022–2024 · $21k · revenue +57%
- WBWATERFRONT BOTANICAL GARDENS INC2× · 2022–2023 · $10k · revenue +78%
Funded once
- EKEDCHOICE KENTUCKY INCone grant, 2024 · $200k · revenue -91% · 61% of their budget
- SCSCHOOL CHOICE SCHOLARSHIPS INCone grant, 2021 · $100k · revenue 0%
- EEDCHOICEone grant, 2021 · $25k
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.
Louisville collegiate school inspires academic excellence, extraordinary character and global citizenship.
Kentucky country day school challenges its students to achieve their highest level of academic excellence and to grow into honorable men and women of confidence and integrity. we inspire personal growth through a diverse community and…
The kentucky college of art and design opens the door to a creative and productive life through an undergraduate education in the contemporary arts.
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
The jefferson scholars foundation (foundation) provides academic merit-based scholarship, fellowship and professorship support to students and faculty at the university of virginia (uva).
Broadens the perspectives of current and emerging leaders through experiential education that inspires them to advance kentucky.
Perform fundraising functions, provide financial support, carryout the purpose and otherwise operating for the benefit of the zoological society of cincinnati.
To improve the quality of life for all kentuckians through research, education and advocacy on important policy issues facing the commonwealth.
To acquire, maintain, improve, leverage, manage, lease, and convey real and personal property for the benefit of the university of louisville.
To empower and educate people to value, preserve and save greater cincinnati's historic buildings, communities, landscapes and stories.
Jefferson rise charter school prepares all scholars in grades 6-12 to succeed in four-year colleges and professional careers.
Louisville ballet makes moving art that respects tradition, encourages innovation, and fosters life-long learning. we inspire connection, conversation and a profound sense of community, by striving for bold collaborations, by nurturing the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is University of Louisville Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is West End School 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 40 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
21 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. 21 of the 41 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 EDCHOICE KENTUCKY INC ↗
- Who funds SPEED ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds SCHOOL CHOICE SCHOLARSHIPS INC ↗
- Who funds THE FILSON HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FUND FOR THE ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds CEDAR LAKE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF KENTUCKIANA INC ↗
- Who funds YEW DELL INC ↗
- Who funds WATERFRONT BOTANICAL GARDENS INC ↗
- Who funds GILDA'S CLUB KENTUCKIANA INC ↗
- Who funds RIVER FIELDS INC ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA CHANCE SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds West End School Inc ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Immaculata Classical Academy Inc ↗
- Who funds BLOOD CANCER UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds THE NICHOLSON PROJECT ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES CATHOLIC CONFERENCE NAZARETH HOME INC ↗
- Who funds SIGNATURE THEATRE INC ↗
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 Community Foundation of Louisville Depository Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Inc · Cralle Foundation Inc · Collier Community Foundation Inc · Paradis Foundation Inc · Ina B Bond Ashbourne Charitable Fund Inc · The Gheens Foundation Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Corporate Depository Inc · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · The Lewis and Gladys Bass Family Charitable Foundation · Gardner Foundation Incorporated · Brown-Forman 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 The Wells 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 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 The Wells Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Wells 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.