· Private foundation
Ayers 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 FY2017–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- Under $10k3 grants · $4k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $107k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $200k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| EAST TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY | $200,000 |
| LIPSCOMB UNIVERSITY - LEADERSHIP TN | $28,000 |
| FREED-HARDMAN UNIVERSITY | $25,000 |
| FOUNDATION FOR THE COLLEGE SYSTEM OF TENNESSEE | $25,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $17,068 |
| SMALL MIRACLES THERAPEUTIC EQUESTRIAN CENTER INC | $12,000 |
| MENTAL HEALTH AMERICA OF THE MID-SOUTH | $2,000 |
| SECOND HARVEST FOOD | $1,723 |
| TENNESSEE CHILDREN'S HOME DONATION | $500 |
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 (FY17–21, $81k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 86% 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 +44% since the first grant, against +27% for the ones you funded once.
55 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2023, 47 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (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 FY2023, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- BUBelmont University5× · 2017–2022 · $7.2M · revenue +86%
- VUVanderbilt University Medical Center4× · 2019–2022 · $701k · revenue +91%
- LULIPSCOMB UNIVERSITY5× · 2017–2022 · $656k · revenue +44%
Funded once
- HAHORATIO ALGER ASSN OF DISTINGUISHED AMERICANS INCone grant, 2019 · $290k · revenue +2%
- FBFIRST BAPTIST CHURCH PARSONSone grant, 2022 · $27k
- ECERLANGER CHILDREN'S HOSPITALone grant, 2017 · $25k
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.
Nashville public radio's mission is to be the most trusted & independent nashville voice, connecting our communities through non-partisan journalism, compelling storytelling, civil conversation and music discovery.
Methodist Medical Center provides quality healthcare, in alignment with Covenant Health's mission to serve the community by improving the quality of life through better health regardless of a patient's ability to pay.
The mission of the organization is to lead our members in advocacy for and support of community-based hospitals and health systems and to assist them in delivering accessible, cost-effective, quality health services.
See Disclosure Above.
Cumberland Medical Center provides quality healthcare, in alignment with Covenant Health's mission to serve the community by improving the quality of life through better health, regardless of the patient's ability to pay.
To maintain high standards for nursing homes in the state of tennessee and to seek the solutions to problems common to members of the association.
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
Roane County Medical Center provides quality healthcare, in alignment with Covenant Health's mission to serve the community by improving the quality of life through better health, regardless of a patient's ability to pay.
To be a successful physician led, professionally managed medical practice that benefits our patients and our community, while supporting the UT Health Science Center's mission through clinical excellence, financial responsibility and a…
To serve our communities by provding innovative and compassionate healthcare.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee Inc and the most unlike its peers is Angel Emms Inc. 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 50 years old; the field is 24. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
51 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. 51 of the 109 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 Belmont University ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE INC ↗
- Who funds Vanderbilt University Medical Center ↗
- Who funds LIPSCOMB UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds BALLAD HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HORATIO ALGER ASSN OF DISTINGUISHED AMERICANS INC ↗
- Who funds CENTERSTONE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds GIRL SCOUTS OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE INC ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds THE FOUNDATION FOR THE COLLEGE SYSTEM OF TENNESSEE ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF UNICOI COUNTY ↗
- Who funds WEST TN AREA COUNCIL BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds CHEEKWOOD BOTANICAL GARDEN AND MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds LANE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Nashville Symphony Association ↗
- Who funds ANDREW JACKSON FOUNDATION FKA LADIES' HERMITAGE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds FREED-HARDEMAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds SMALL MIRACLES THERAPEUTIC EQUESTRIAN CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds SENIOR CITIZENS INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE MUSEE DORSAY ↗
- Who funds UNION UNIVERSITY ↗
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 Middle Tennessee Inc · The Steven & Laurie Eskind Family Foundation · The Frist Foundation · The Ayers Foundation Trust · Dorothy Cate and Thomas F Frist Foundation · Memorial Foundation Inc · Hca Healthcare Foundation · United Way of Middle Tennessee Inc · Enchiridion Foundation · Louie M & Betty M Phillips Foundatn · The Wade-Buntin Family Foundation · West Tn Healthcare Foundation Inc
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 Ayers 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 Ayers Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Ayers 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.