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Banker Steel Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Banker Steel Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$10k
Granted FY2024still arriving
3
Grants FY2024still arriving
2
States reached
$5k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Education$168k
02FY2024 · 3 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$2,500
Median grant
2
States reached
$0
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
EMMA MCPHATTER CO VIRGINIA TECH$5,000
JAYASAI CHARMIL V MEESALA CO VA COM$2,500
JORDYN MILLER CO UNIVERSITY OF ALBA$2,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–19) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 66% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%MONTSERRAT COLLEGE OF ART: $5k → 10%NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: $3k → 17%THE CITADEL: $5k → 12%LAKE SUMPTER STATE COLLEGE: $3k → 10%GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: $3k → 6%UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: $3k → 8%VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE: $2k → 12%UNIVERSITY OF LYNCHBURG: $5k → 13%CENTRAL VIRGINIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE: $2k → 20%VIRGINIA TECH: $5k → 21%VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY: $3k → 22%MONTSERRAT COLLEGE OF ART: $5k → 10%NEW YORK UNIVERSITY: $3k → 17%THE CITADEL: $5k → 12%LAKE SUMPTER STATE COLLEGE: $3k → 10%GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: $2k → 6%UNIVERSITY OF LYNCHBURG: $5k → 13%VIRGINIA TECH: $3k → 21%VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY: $3k → 22%MONTSERRAT COLLEGE OF ART: $3k → 10%THE CITADEL: $5k → 12%VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY: $3k → 22%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

77%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$130k · 17 repeat orgs$38k to everyone else

17 repeat relationships: 3 still active in FY2024, 14 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

17
15

Total granted

$130k
$38k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+3%
+75%

Still filing today

18%
7%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • AA
    AUTUMN AUSTIN CO CONCORD UNIVERSITY
    2× · 2021–2022 · $18k
  • TC
    THE CITADEL
    3× · 2017–2019 · $15k
  • JC
    JAYASAI CHARMIL V MEESALA CO VA COM
    4× · 2021–2024 · $13k

Funded once

  • EC
    ERIN COFFEY CO VIRGINIA TECH
    one grant, 2022 · $5k
  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    one grant, 2020 · $5k
  • EC
    EMMA COFFEY CO UNIVERSITY OF LYNCHB
    one grant, 2022 · $3k
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field
04the grantee network

4 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 4 of the 32 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
4/4
Grantees still filing
3/4
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

AUTUMN AUSTIN CO CONCORD UNIVERSITY: $17,500 · OtherAUTUMN AUSTIN CO CONCORD UNIVERSITYTHE CITADEL: $15,000 · OtherTHE CITADELJAYASAI CHARMIL V MEESALA CO VA COM: $12,500 · OtherJAYASAI CHARMIL V MEESALA CO VA COMEMMA MCPHATTER CO VIRGINIA TECH: $12,500 · OtherEMMA MCPHATTER CO VIRGINIA TECHVIRGINIA TECH: $7,500 · OtherVIRGINIA TECHVIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY: $7,500 · OtherVIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITYEMMA MATKINS CO VA COMMONWEALTH UNI: $5,000 · OtherERIN COFFEY CO VIRGINIA TECH: $5,000 · OtherLAKE SUMPTER STATE COLLEGE: $5,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipient: $5,000 · Other+18 more: $45,000 · Other+18 moreMontserrat College Of Art Inc: $12,500 · EducationMontserrat College O…UNIVERSITY OF LYNCHBURG: $10,000 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF LYNCHB…New York University: $5,000 · EducationNew York UniversityLIBERTY UNIVERSITY INC: $2,500 · EducationLIBERTY UNIVERSITY I…
Other$137,500Education$30,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetMontserrat College Of Art Inc: $12,500 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF LYNCHBURG: $10,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetNew York University: $5,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetLIBERTY UNIVERSITY INC: $2,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

  • Who funds Montserrat College Of Art Inc ↗
  • Who funds UNIVERSITY OF LYNCHBURG ↗
  • Who funds New York University ↗
  • Who funds LIBERTY UNIVERSITY INC ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Banker Steel Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Banker Steel Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%3%5%8%10%share of the org’s income from government →median 3%
  • Montserrat College of Art Inc: 3% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–10%
typical government reliance, FY20–25
How this is measured
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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Banker Steel Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Banker Steel 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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 32 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Banker Steel’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions
grants reported with no recipient in the public record
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
The endowment market
who holds foundation money, and what just moved
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home