· Private foundation
A Better South Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k18 grants · $18k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $90k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $100k
- $250k+1 grant · $601k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| AUBURN UNIVERSITY | $601,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH | $100,000 |
| HOMEWOOD SOCCER CLUB | $30,000 |
| ALABAMA RIVERS ALLIANCE | $25,000 |
| SOUTHERN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW CENTER | $25,000 |
| NATURE CONSERVATORY OF ALABAMA | $10,000 |
| CAHABA RIVER SOCIETY | $1,500 |
| FRESHWATER LAND TRUST | $1,500 |
| SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER | $1,000 |
| PROPUBLICA | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| SHELBY COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY | $1,000 |
| WOMEN'S FOUNDATION OF ALABAMA | $1,000 |
| BLACK WARRIOR RIVERKEEPER | $1,000 |
| ALABAMA SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE NETWORK | $1,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY25–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% of your 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.
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.
Coordinate rc&d activity in alabama
Working with the community to conserve the rivanna river and its watershed through water quality monitoring, education, restoration, and stewardship.
To promote the preservation and continued development of commercial banking in alabama.
At Conservation Alabama, we work to ensure that decisions made by our local, state, and national elected officials protect the people and places of Alabama.
We inspire people to enjoy, value and protect the wild character and natural legacy of the South.
The alabama association of conservation districts (aacd) is the unified voice of alabama's 67 conservation districts. organized as a 501(c)3, aacd works in cooperation with the alabama soil & water conservation committee, federal, state,…
The South Alabama Land Trust protects land and promotes environmental education in coastal Alabama so current and future residents can enjoy clean water and the seafood, wildlife, and outdoor recreation that define our area.
A statewide trade association which serves as a resource through which its electric cooperative members are provided services for the continuation and advancement of the rural electrification program in Alabama.
The mission of the South Fork Conservancy is to restore and preserve habitat along the tributaries of Peachtree Creek. We give the community access to these healthy, restored greenspaces by designing, building and maintaining nature trails.
Provide citizens a means to protect the beauty, health and heritage of the Mobile Bay Watershed, Alabamas waterways and coastal communities.
To build the ability of Alabama citizens and organizations to promote conservation through government and civic action.
To conduct land conservation, stewardship and education in the upper american river and upper cosumnes river watersheds
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Black Warrior Riverkeeper Inc and the most unlike its peers is Katdadde Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
18 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 18 of the 24 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 UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH ↗
- Who funds HOMEWOOD SOCCER CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds Alabama Rivers Alliance Inc ↗
- Who funds Cahaba River Society Inc ↗
- Who funds FRESHWATER LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds PRO PUBLICA INC ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S FOUNDATION OF ALABAMA ↗
- Who funds COLLEGE CHOICE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ALABAMA SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE NETWORK ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF SHELBY COUNTY ↗
- Who funds BLACK WARRIOR RIVERKEEPER INC ↗
- Who funds COOSA RIVERKEEPER INC ↗
- Who funds Katdadde Inc ↗
- Who funds RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE ALABAMA INC ↗
- Who funds ALABAMA INITIATIVE FOR INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM INC ↗
- Who funds JEFFERSON COUNTY GREENWAYS 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: The Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham · The Daniel Foundation of Alabama · Stephens Foundation · The Hugh Kaul Foundation · Susan Mott Webb Charitable Trust · Mike and Gillian Goodrich Foundation · Protective Life Foundation · Abahac Inc · The Gratitude Foundation · Strain Foundation · Robert R Meyer Foundation · Altecstyslinger 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 A Better South 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.