Wells County Foundation Inc
Bluffton, IN · EIN 35-6042815. Reported 124 grants totalling $2,750,263 to 45 organizations across tax years 2021-2024, on Form 990 Schedule I.
Does this grantmaker accept applications?
Its tax return does not say, and we will not guess. Private foundations file Form 990-PF, which asks outright whether they fund only organizations they select themselves -- 78% say yes, and that one answer is what lets the rest of this site tell you which foundations are worth approaching. Grantmaking charities like this one file a regular Form 990 instead, and the IRS never puts the question to them. Anyone claiming to know the answer from the filing is inventing it.
Three things in the filing do bear on it:
- What kind of organization it is. For Wells County Foundation Inc, the IRS classifies it under education rather than as a grantmaker (NTEE B820) -- it is an operating charity that also makes grants.
- How spread out its giving is. 45 distinct organizations, with 22% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is genuinely spread out -- the mark of a funder making many independent decisions rather than underwriting one institution.
- How much its list changes. 85% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is well above the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and above the 67% private foundations manage. This list is close to settled, so a newcomer has to displace someone rather than fill a gap.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $10,800. Half of what it reported fell between $7,700 and $19,169; the smallest was $5,308 and the largest $267,000. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
Every organization it funded
This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by the EIN the filer reported, not by name, so an organization that was typed differently in two years appears once rather than twice.
| Organization | Location | Total received | Grants | Years funded | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bluffton Parks Department | Bluffton, IN | $596,052 | 8 | 4 | 2024 |
| Wells County Revitalization Inc | Bluffton, IN | $506,326 | 5 | 4 | 2024 |
| Wells Community Boys & Girls Club Inc | Bluffton, IN | $174,553 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Bi-County Services Inc | Bluffton, IN | $126,595 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Family Centered Services Inc | Bluffton, IN | $117,340 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Creative Arts Council of Wells County Inc | Bluffton, IN | $98,077 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| St Joseph Catholic Church | Bluffton, IN | $84,600 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Community Care of Wells County Inc | Bluffton, IN | $83,931 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Trustees of Purdue University | Bluffton, IN | $73,447 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Pleasant Dale Cemetery Assoc | Decatur, IN | $67,250 | 8 | 4 | 2024 |
| St Vincent De Paul Catholic | Fort Wayne, IN | $56,400 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Alive & Well Abstinence Educ | Bluffton, IN | $55,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Wells County Public Library | Bluffton, IN | $51,231 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| James Whitcomb Riley Memorial Association | Indianapolis, IN | $47,900 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| United Way of Wells County Inc | Bluffton, IN | $45,200 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Southern Wells Comm Schools | Poneto, IN | $42,161 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| YWCA Northeast Indiana Inc | Fort Wayne, IN | $40,921 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Heartspring Inc | Wichita, KS | $40,795 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Wells County Ems Inc | Bluffton, IN | $40,550 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Ossian Volunteer Firemen Inc | Ossian, IN | $39,620 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Community Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Indiana Inc | Fort Wayne, IN | $34,000 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| Bluffton-Harrison Msd | Bluffton, IN | $31,833 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Junior Achievement USA | Colorado Spgs, CO | $29,700 | 4 | 4 | 2024 |
| First United Methodist Church | Bluffton, IN | $23,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| The Literacy Alliance Inc | Fort Wayne, IN | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Youth for Christ USA Inc | Bluffton, IN | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Stillwater Hospice | Fort Wayne, IN | $19,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Friends of Five Points School Inc | Warren, IN | $17,702 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Wells Co Child Protection | Bluffton, IN | $17,137 | 2 | 2 | 2022 |
| Run Hard Rest Well Inc | Fort Wayne, IN | $15,678 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Poneto Vol Fire Dept | Poneto, IN | $15,592 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Northern Wells Comm Schools | Ossian, IN | $13,550 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Wells County Council on Aging Inc | Bluffton, IN | $13,425 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| Wells County Food & Clothing Bureau Inc | Bluffton, IN | $11,000 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| Town of Vera Cruz | Bluffton, IN | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Imagine Early Inc | Decatur, IN | $9,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Metropolitan Young Mens Christian Association | Fort Wayne, IN | $8,089 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| American National Red Cross | Washington, DC | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Hope Missionary Church | Bluffton, IN | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Tri Recovery Inc | Bluffton, IN | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Wells County Historical Society Inc | Bluffton, IN | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Cancer Services of Allen County Inc | Fort Wayne, IN | $6,200 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Boy Scouts of America | Irving, TX | $6,100 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Matthew 25 Inc | Fort Wayne, IN | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Helping Hands Crisis Pregnancy Clinic | Bluffton, IN | $5,308 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
31 of 45 (69%) received money in more than one year over the 4 years we hold. Remember the $5,000 floor: an organization funded every year at $3,000 shows up here as never funded at all.
What the money was for
Taken verbatim from the purpose column of its filings, largest first. This is the closest thing to a statement of what it funds, in its own words.
- Bluffton Parks Department
VARIOUS ACTIVITIES AT LOCAL PARKS - Wells County Revitalization Inc
SUPPORT REVITALIZATION OF COMMUNITY - Bi-County Services Inc
PROGRAMS FOR MENTALLY HANDICAPPED - Wells Co Boys & Girls Club
SUPPORT PROGRAMS FOR KIDS IN COMM - Community Care of Wells Co
FUNDING FOR PROGRAMS & FACILITY - Wells Co 4-H Association
FUNDING FOR FACILITY IMPROVEMENTS
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 25 of 45 recipients we could match to a registered organization. These are assigned categories, not our guesses -- Schedule I reports the recipient's EIN, so this is a lookup rather than a name match.
Giving by year
| Tax year | Grants reported | Total | Median grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 24 | $550,555 | $10,500 |
| 2022 | 29 | $767,767 | $11,470 |
| 2023 | 34 | $646,668 | $12,332 |
| 2024 | 37 | $785,273 | $10,000 |
Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- Form 990 arrives about a year after the year it covers, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a grantmaker winding down.
Where its money goes
97% of its giving went to organizations in Indiana. Community foundations and federated funds are usually the most geographically bounded funders there are -- being outside the footprint is normally disqualifying in a way that a weak programme fit is not.
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Funders that support the same organizations
These grantmakers and private foundations gave to organizations this one also funded. Shared grantees are the strongest signal available that two funders have overlapping priorities -- and a funder already backing your peers is a far warmer prospect than one that merely lists your cause.
How to approach this grantmaker
- Look for a published programme first. Unlike most private foundations, organizations of this kind often do run open, deadlined grant cycles with written guidelines. Its own website is the authority on that; this page is the authority on who it has actually paid.
- Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $10,800 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
- Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in Indiana.
- Read the recipient list for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer and a cheap one to get.
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Wells County Foundation Inc's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2021-2024). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 32 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 5 other organizations. That is the filer's own count for one year; the totals above cover every year we hold.
Address of record on the latest return: 222 W Market Street, Bluffton, IN, 46714.
EIN 35-6042815 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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