About Waterwheel Foundation
The Waterwheel Foundation gives large, concentrated funding to philanthropic intermediaries rather than operating nonprofits; its sole recorded grant is a single multi-million dollar general support award to the Vermont Community Foundation. This indicates the foundation prefers to fund community foundations or regional grantmaking vehicles, likely to leverage local expertise and distribute support across communities in Vermont. The grant’s unrestricted "GENERAL" purpose suggests a focus on flexible capacity or endowment-building rather than project-specific programming.
Focus Areas
Support for community foundations and regional grantmaking intermediariesUnrestricted/general operating support or endowment-building for philanthropic institutionsRegional philanthropy focused on Vermont
Giving Approach
Highly concentrated: one large, unrestricted grant to a single intermediary (Vermont Community Foundation), indicating preference for fewer, sizable grants to organizations that can regrant locally rather than many small direct-service awards.
Notable grantees: Vermont Community Foundation
About Waterwheel Foundation
The Waterwheel Foundation’s defining pattern is a concentrated, multi-million-dollar grant to the Vermont Community Foundation, paired with a broad set of smaller general support awards to local nonprofits tied to Vermont and communities the band visits on tour. That structure points to a funder that works through intermediaries as well as directly with organizations serving community needs. The foundation’s 2025 grant list shows support for domestic violence services, arts, journalism, environmental groups, food-security organizations, and disaster recovery efforts. Several grants go to Vermont-based recipients in Burlington, Montpelier, Shelburne, Ludlow, Waterbury Center, Richmond, and South Burlington, while others reach groups in New York, California, Maine, North Carolina, Nevada, and Washington, DC. The biggest award in the record is a $2,690,000 general grant to the Vermont Community Foundation in Middlebury, which stands apart from the smaller operating-style grants that follow. Across the list, the foundation uses unrestricted general support frequently, suggesting flexibility in how recipients use the funds rather than narrowly targeted project grants.
What Waterwheel Foundation Funds
In community philanthropy, The Waterwheel Foundation made its largest recorded award to the Vermont Community Foundation for general support. That grant signals a willingness to channel substantial resources through a regional grantmaking intermediary. The same pattern appears in smaller awards to community-facing organizations such as Burlington City Arts and The Flynn Center for Performing Arts, both in Burlington, which show attention to local cultural institutions. Environmental and land-focused work also appears in the record: Friends of the Winooski River in Montpelier received general support, as did Green Mountain Club in Waterbury Center and Vermont Parks Forever in Montpelier. The foundation also backed food and housing-related groups, including The Agrihood Collective in Shelburne and King Street Center Inc in Burlington. These examples show a mix of community infrastructure, environment, and basic-needs support.
How Waterwheel Foundation Gives
The 2025 grant list is tightly clustered around general support awards, with one very large outlier and a long tail of smaller grants. The top grant is $2,690,000, while many other awards sit in the $20,000 to $50,000 range, including several at $25,000. The foundation is a private foundation, does not fund individuals, and makes no program-related investments. The record shows repeated support in 2025, but the data provided does not show multiple grant years for the same recipients, so the visible pattern is one of current-year, discretionary giving rather than a documented multiyear recipient relationship. Unsolicited applications are not part of the listed programs.
Financial Snapshot
Annual Giving
$4M
Total Assets
$15.6M
Total Revenue
$3.3M
Total Expenses
$4.1M
Geographic Reach
Regional17 states funded
About 9% of grants go to recipients in VT.
Funding intensity
LowHigh
Headquarters
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