· Private foundation
William & Florence Wheeler Foundation
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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k10 grants · $35k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $173k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $120k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GARCES MEMORIAL HIGH SCHOOL | $64,750 |
| CMSF HERITAGE FOUNDATION | $55,072 |
| Individual grant recipient | $31,120 |
| BAKERSFIELD COLLEGE FOUNDATION | $30,000 |
| JACK'S HELPING HAND | $25,000 |
| JUNIOR LEAGUE OF BAKERSFIELD | $20,000 |
| MENDIBURU MAGIC FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| CALIFORNIA REINING HORSE ASSOCIATION | $11,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF KERN COUNTY | $10,000 |
| REDWINGS HORSE SANCTUARY | $10,000 |
| ALANO PINTADO EQUINE HEALTH FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| WOODS HUMANE SOCIETY | $5,000 |
| BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA | $5,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $151k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 97% 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 +46% since the first grant, against +17% for the ones you funded once.
47 repeat relationships — 22 still active in FY2025, 25 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- TBTHE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF KERN COUNTY8× · 2017–2025 · $288k · revenue +147%
- BCBAKERSFIELD CATHOLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION9× · 2017–2025 · $254k · revenue +840%
- CICALM INC4× · 2017–2023 · $160k · revenue +85%
Funded once
- TCTHE CALIFORNIA 4-H FOUNDATIONone grant, 2024 · $50k · revenue -20%
- CCCatholic Charities of the Diocese of Fresnograduatedone grant, 2019 · $30k · revenue +38%
- CCITYSERVEone grant, 2022 · $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.
Dedicated to assisting kern county residents who need financial assistance in obtaining treatment for cancer and associated diseases.
The foundation supports california state university, bakersfield by advocating on behalf of the university, fundraising for university programs and activities, and managing the finances of the foundation and the university endowment.
The mission of the united way of kern county is to "mobilize donors, advocates and volunteers to improve lives in kern county." the organization accomplishes this by raising and investing financial resources in programs that advance the…
assist developmentally disabled individuals.
The specific purpose of the foundation is to raise, gather, collect and receive funds, equipment, donated services and similar contributions for the support, enhancement and enrichment of the kern county museum and to provide operational…
Provide residential and outpatient treatment for drug and alcohol abuse.
To serve individuals and families by providing them with the charitable and educational resources needed to overcome hardship and improve their lives, health and career.
To bring awareness and stature to our community; to advocate healthy, active lifestyles; and to raise funds for local causes - all through the sport of running. proceeds from the event benefit california state university, bakersfield…
To increase awareness and understanding of agriculture among california educators and students.
The scholarship foundation of santa barbara inspires, encourages and supports santa barbara county students to and through college, graduate and vocational school by providing information, advising, and scholarships.
The organization's primary mission is to promote and advance the real estate industry in bakersfield, ca by providing quality services to its members and by promoting the realtor image through community involvement.
To implement policies and develop work programs that will improve the financial well-being and quality of life of california farmers and ranchers.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is San Diego Youth Services and the most unlike its peers is Saint John Vianney Academy. 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 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 25% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
45 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. 45 of the 79 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 THE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF KERN COUNTY ↗
- Who funds BAKERSFIELD CATHOLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MENDIBURU MAGIC FOUNDATION AGAINST CANCER ↗
- Who funds CALM INC ↗
- Who funds Friends of the Kern County Fair ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA REINING HORSE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds JACKS HELPING HAND INC ↗
- Who funds THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BAKERSFIELD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE CALIFORNIA 4-H FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BAKERSFIELD COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ASSOCIATED CATHOLIC CHARITIES INC ↗
- Who funds JUNIOR LEAGUE OF BAKERSFIELD ↗
- Who funds Bakersfield Art Foundation Inc DBA Bakersfield Museum of Art ↗
- Who funds Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Fresno ↗
- Who funds AFRICAN AMERICAN NETWORK OF KERN COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds HORSEPOWER SANCTUARIES INC DBA REDWINGS HORSE SANCTUARY ↗
- Who funds HEALING FUTURES ↗
- Who funds MARE Riding Center ↗
- Who funds JIM BURKE EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Frontier Ag Boosters Inc ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INC ↗
- Who funds REFLECTIONS FOR WOMEN INC ↗
- Who funds TRANSFORMATIONS BY AUSTIN ANGELS ↗
- Who funds Hoffmann Hospice of The Valley ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
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: Kern Community Foundation · Diane S Lake Charitable Trust Lake Diane S Ttee · Lazzerini Family Foundation · Robert Grimm Family Foundation · The Virginia and Alfred Harrell Foundation · Valley Strong Cu Fka Kern Schools Federal Credit Union · Seedcore Foundation · Bakersfield West Rotary-Stroope Family Foundation · Bakersfield Memorial Hospital · Sempra Foundation · California Community Foundation · The California Endowment
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 William & Florence Wheeler 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.
- Associated Catholic Charities Inc — 10% 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.