· Private foundation
Zemsky Family 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 $10k18 grants · $26k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $279k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $556k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| KALEIDA HEALTH FOUNDATION | $240,000 |
| AMERICAN FRIENDS OF MAGEN DAVID ADOM | $115,000 |
| TEMPLE BETH ZION | $101,000 |
| BUFFALO STATE COLLEGE FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| ELMWOOD FRANKLIN SCHOOL | $43,334 |
| FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S MARTIN HOUSE | $40,000 |
| BUFFALO JEWISH FEDERATION | $36,000 |
| COLEBROOKDALE RAILROAD PRESERVATION TRUST | $30,000 |
| NORTHLAND WORKFORCE TRAINING CENTER | $25,000 |
| YMCA BUFFALO NIAGARA | $25,000 |
| VALLEY COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION | $25,000 |
| HARVEST HOUSE BUFFALO INC | $25,000 |
| JEWISH DISCOVERY CENTER | $20,000 |
| DELAINE WARING AME CHURCH | $10,000 |
| BUFFALO URBAN LEAGUE | $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, $332k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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 +35% since the first grant, against +18% for the ones you funded once.
41 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2024, 22 since wound down; 11 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, 65% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $285k 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
- BFBUFFALO FINE ARTS ACADEMY4× · 2020–2023 · $377k · revenue +59%
KALEIDA HEALTH FOUNDATION3× · 2020–2024 · $270k · revenue +35%
RICHARDSON CENTER CORPORATION3× · 2017–2019 · $150k · revenue +45%
Funded once
- CFCAMPAIGN FOR GREATER BUFFALOone grant, 2020 · $154k
- BEBUFFALO & ERIE CO NAVAL & MILITARY PARKone grant, 2022 · $100k
- FOFRIENDS OF GIVAT HAVIVAone grant, 2023 · $63k · revenue -62%
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.
Invest buffalo niagara foundation, inc. is a vehicle to solicit charitable contributions to develop programs, collaborate with, and provide funding to organizations that advance and encourage economic development in western new york.
To acquire, remediate, and steward lands along wny's waterfronts prioritizing public access.
To improve the quality of life of the people and neighborhoods we serve by preparing, equipping and empowering them to meet the challenges of contemporary urban life and realize their full potential.
To attract new employers to the buffalo niagara region through outreach to growing companies around the world. to support business attraction, expansion and entrepreneurship, invest buffalo niagara collaborates with local businesses,…
The buffalo erie niagara land improvement corporation (benlic) seeks to confront and alleviate the problems distressed properties cause to communities by supporting municipal and regional revitalization efforts and strategically acquiring,…
The organization was formed for the specific purpose of operating, maintaining and protecting parks and public spaces in the city of buffalo, new york, including but not limited to parks and public spaces owned or operated by the city of…
The legal aid bureau of buffalo, inc., a not-for-profit organization, provides legal representation to financially needy men, women and children in western new york. through its skilled staff, the legal aid bureau seeks equal justice for…
Create new public golf and recreation amenities in the city of buffalo; assist in the restoration of frederick law olmsted's south park arboretum; and construct a new education center for underserved, minority youth.
The abny foundation, inc. (the "foundation") was created to provide funds for social, educational, and civic initiatives that enhance the quality of life in the five boroughs of new york city.
The organization operates an incubator facility to identify and aid start-up businesses with a purpose of stimulating development and increasing interaction between the university at buffalo and such businesses.
Building community; creating connections; saving wildlife through a collaboration for change: the buffalo zoo will be a center of conservation excellence, providing leadership to secure a future where wildlife thrives. we embody our…
Support the urban economic development efforts of the region through the acquisition, remediation and management of distressed properties
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies Inc and the most unlike its peers is Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust. 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 37 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% 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 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.
56 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. 56 of the 98 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 Jewish Federation Of Greater Buffalo Inc ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO FINE ARTS ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds KALEIDA HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RICHARDSON CENTER CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR GREATER BUFFALO INC ↗
- Who funds FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT'S MARTIN HOUSE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF MAGEN DAVID ADOM ↗
- Who funds ROSWELL PARK ALLIANCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION BUFFALO NIAGARA ↗
- Who funds THE VALLEY COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds BUFFALO STATE COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Broadway-Fillmore Neighborhood Housing Services Inc ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF GIVAT HAVIVA ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF SOROKA MEDICAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds RESTORATION SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds NIAGARA AEROSPACE MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF BUFFALO AND ERIE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds ELMWOOD-FRANKLIN SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL TERMINAL RESTORATION CORP ↗
- Who funds THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds Colebrookdale Railroad Preservation Trust ↗
- Who funds MANN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds HARVEST HOUSE BUFFALO INC ↗
- Who funds THE JEWISH FEDERATIONS OF NORTH AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds WESTERN NEW YORK PUBLIC BROADCASTING ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF BUFFALO ↗
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: Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo Inc · First Niagara Foundation · The Baird Foundation · Foundation for Jewish Philanthropies Inc · The Western New York Foundation · The John R Oishei Foundation · Cullen Foundation · Independent Health Association Inc · The Frank G Raichle Foundation · Rich Family Foundation · The Peter and Elizabeth C Tower Foundation · The Ralph C Wilson Jr 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 Zemsky 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 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.