· Private foundation
Willis and Elsie Shenk Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k23 grants · $84k
- $10k–50k11 grants · $170k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LANCASTER FARMLAND TRUST | $50,000 |
| LANCASTER CONSERVANCY | $25,000 |
| LANCASTER CONSERVANCY | $25,000 |
| LITTLE CONESTOGA CREEK FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| LANCASTER COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| LANCASTERHISTORYORG | $15,000 |
| LANCASTER COUNTY FOOD HUB | $10,000 |
| SOUTHEAST LANCASTER HEALTH SERVICES | $10,000 |
| TENFOLD | $10,000 |
| HORIZONS AT LANCASTER COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL | $10,000 |
| THE EDIBLE CLASSROOM | $10,000 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF LANCASTER | $10,000 |
| LANCASTER COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL | $8,500 |
| HOLY SPIRIT LUTHERAN CHURCH | $5,000 |
| SWAN | $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 (FY17–24, $148k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
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 +50% since the first grant, against -38% for the ones you funded once.
49 repeat relationships — 31 still active in FY2024, 18 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- LCLANCASTER COUNTY CONSERVANCY7× · 2017–2024 · $1.3M · revenue +137%
- LFLANCASTER FARMLAND TRUST7× · 2017–2024 · $197k · revenue +70%
- LLANCASTERHISTORYORG7× · 2017–2024 · $160k · revenue +203%
Funded once
- LCLANCASTER CHAMBER FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $25k
- LCLANCASTER COUNTY CONSERVATION FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $15k
- CMCENTRAL MARKET TRUSTone grant, 2017 · $13k · revenue -38%
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.
Enhance public safety and the quality of life in lancaster by engaging the community and advancing current crime prevention strategies.
The lancaster chamber of commerce & industry's mission is to create the environment, facilitate partnerships, and lead on issues that elevate business success. the chamber has 5 strategic priorities: public policy, workforce, business…
To enrich the quality of life in Lancaster County by building vibrant and inclusive communities connecting arts, culture, education, and economic vitality.
Provide resources, services, and expertise in a collaborative manner to and with the member libraries in order to effectively serve our communities
Provides managerial and financial support to its controlled organizations and is also responsible for undertaking activities designed to advance the general health of the community.
To provide comprehensive, skillful, cost effective emergency and non- emergency health care services to the lancaster community while continuing to evolve with changing health care needs.
The mission is to facilitate the unfolding of each child's unique potential through an outstanding montessori education that enables a child to meet future challenges, and that encourages a love of learning, independent thinking, social…
Support member businesses through education and promotion, and support the quality of life in lancaster county through promoting compatible economic development.
Lancaster county academy's mission is to empower non-traditional learners to achieve academic success, career readiness and personal growth through flexible, student-centered programs that values independence, resilience, and real-world…
The children's museum of lancaster (hands-on-house) has the following mission: creating landmark learning experiences for children and their families through play.
The lancaster community library is a center for the cultural, intellectual, and recreational pursuits of the community. through its materials, programs, and services, the library promotes literacy, provides lifetime learning opportunities,…
Assets lancaster is a non-profit that works with start-up and existing businesses to form a more equitable and ethical economy. assets lancaster offers in-depth training and financing for entrepreneurs, and works with established…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Lancaster County Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Little Conestoga Creek Foundation. 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 38 years old; the field is 16. 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 — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 8% 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.
42 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. 42 of the 64 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 LANCASTER COUNTY CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER FARMLAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds LANCASTERHISTORYORG ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF LANCASTER INC ↗
- Who funds TENFOLD ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF LANCASTER COUNTY ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER SCIENCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds LITTLE CONESTOGA CREEK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ROCK FORD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER GENERAL HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER COUNTY FOOD HUB ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAN CENTER ↗
- Who funds MILAGRO HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds CASA OF LANCASTER AND LEBANON COUNTIES ↗
- Who funds JEFF MUSSER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE EDIBLE CLASSROOM ↗
- Who funds THE JANUS SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds UNITED DISABILITIES SERVICES ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER HEALTH CENTER ↗
- Who funds PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGN ↗
- Who funds AARON'S ACRES ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER CITY POLICE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WATER STREET MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds POWER PACKS PROJECT ↗
- Who funds LANCASTER SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds DEMUTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VISIONCORPS ↗
- Who funds WEST LAMPETER TOWNSHIP COMMUNITY 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: Lancaster County Community Foundation · The Steinman Foundation · Ferree Foundation · Clark Associates Charitable Foundation · High Foundation · Fulton Family Foundation · Thomas a and Georgina T Russo Foundation · Richard S & Ann B Barshinger Family Fdn · Pryor E & Arlene R Neuber Charitable Trust · United Way of Lancaster County · Ppl Foundation · The Abigail L Longenecker Memorial 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 Willis and Elsie Shenk 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 Willis and Elsie Shenk Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Willis and Elsie Shenk 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.