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Bell Trust at a glance

· Private foundation

Bell Trust

Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$591k
Granted FY2024still arriving
9
Grants FY2024still arriving
5
States reached
$20k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
0190% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2019 to 2024.

Religion$767kOther$0
02FY2024 · 9 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 9 grants below total $121,400, the rows itemized in this filing. The $590,600 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $469,200 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k2 grants · $11k
  • $10k–50k7 grants · $110k
$15,000
Median grant
5
States reached
$10M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
CEDAR CREST CHURCH OF CHRIST$20,000
HIGHLAND CHURCH OF CHRIST$18,000
HIGHLAND OAKS CHURCH OF CHRIST$15,000
RIVERSIDE CHURCH OF CHRIST$15,000
HILLCREST CHURCH OF CHRIST$15,000
SOUTH BATON ROUGE CHURCH OF CHRIST$15,000
NORTH BRONX CHURCH OF CHRIST$12,000
BOZEMAN CHURCH OF CHRIST$8,400
EASTSIDE CHURCH OF CHRIST$3,000
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 (FY19–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 71% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 12%BOZEMAN CHURCH OF CHRIST: $10k → 10%BALDWIN PARK CHURCH OF CHRIST: $10k → 14%NORTH BRONX CHURCH OF CHRIST: $12k → 28%CROSSWAY CHURCH OF CHRIST: $15k → 5%BRIDGEWAY CHURCH OF CHRIST: $23k → 8%WOODLAND WEST CHURCH OF CHRIST: $25k → 11%COMMERCE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $18k → 13%CEDAR CREST CHURCH OF CHRIST: $20k → 14%GRACE STREET CHURCH OF CHRIST: $9k → 20%HILLCREST CHURCH OF CHRIST: $15k → 22%AM CHURCH OF CHRIST: $20k → 22%SOUTHWEST CHURCH OF CHRIST: $13k → 14%MERRICK DRIVE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $15k → 16%EDMOND CHURCH OF CHRIST: $15k → 16%GRIFFIN ROAD CHURCH OF CHRIST: $15k → 16%ALACHUA CHURCH OF CHRIST: $6k → 19%HOMEWOOD CHURCH OF CHRIST: $30k → 16%HARPETH HILLS CHURCH OF CHRIST: $18k → 4%HIGHLAND STREET CHURCH OF CHRIST: $15k → 17%KINGDOM CHURCH OF CHRIST: $10k → 10%NORTH ATLANTA CHURCH OF CHRIST: $24k → 14%CASTLE ROCK CHURCH OF CHRIST: $15k → 3%EASTSIDE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $15k → 9%NORTH POINTE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $8k → 11%SOUTH BATON ROUGE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $29k → 19%CHURCH OF CHRIST IN SANDTOWN: $25k → 19%BRUNSWICK CHURCH OF CHRIST: $10k → 7%BOZEMAN CHURCH OF CHRIST: $8k → 10%BRIDGEWAY CHURCH OF CHRIST: $15k → 8%COMMERCE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $12k → 13%CEDAR CREST CHURCH OF CHRIST: $15k → 14%HIGHLAND CHURCH OF CHRIST: $24k → 16%SOUTHWEST CHURCH OF CHRIST: $6k → 14%MERRICK DRIVE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $12k → 16%HARPETH HILLS CHURCH OF CHRIST: $15k → 4%METRO CHURCH OF CHRIST: $18k → 10%NORTH ATLANTA CHURCH OF CHRIST: $13k → 14%EASTSIDE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $10k → 9%SOUTH BATON ROUGE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $22k → 19%CHURCH OF CHRIST IN SANDTOWN: $16k → 19%COMMERCE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $6k → 13%RIVERSIDE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $15k → 14%SOUTH 11TH WILLISCHURCH OF CHRIST: $20k → 16%SOUTH BATON ROUGE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $15k → 19%RIVERSIDE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $10k → 14%HIGHLAND CHURCH OF CHRIST: $18k → 16%HIGHLAND OAKS CHURCH OF CHRIST: $20k → 14%HIGHLAND OAKS CHURCH OF CHRIST: $15k → 14%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.

Which US states its grants reach

ME
MT
NY
CA
CO
MD
TN
NC
OK
LA
AL
GA
TX
FL
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.
04

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 76% of Bell Trust’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 6% of the giving stays in TX; by stated purpose, 11%.

Bell Trustlessmore of its giving
Placed by recipient address
How this is measured
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

67%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$513k · 15 repeat orgs$253k to everyone else

15 repeat relationships: 7 still active in FY2024, 8 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

15
16

Total granted

$513k
$226k

Still filing today

0%
6%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 78% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $27k went to new ones.

50%100%’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

  • SB
    SOUTH BATON ROUGE CHURCH OF CHRIST
    3× · 2022–2024 · $66k
  • HC
    HIGHLAND CHURCH OF CHRIST
    2× · 2023–2024 · $42k
  • CO
    CHURCH OF CHRIST IN SANDTOWN
    2× · 2021–2023 · $41k

Funded once

  • HC
    HOMEWOOD CHURCH OF CHRIST
    one grant, 2022 · $30k
  • WW
    WOODLAND WEST CHURCH OF CHRIST
    one grant, 2022 · $25k
  • S1
    SOUTH 11TH WILLISCHURCH OF CHRIST
    one grant, 2023 · $20k
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
05the grantee network

2 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. 2 of the 33 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)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
2/2
Grantees still filing
1/2
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

SOUTH BATON ROUGE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $66,000 · OtherSOUTH BATON ROUGE CHURCH OF CHRISTHIGHLAND CHURCH OF CHRIST: $42,000 · OtherHIGHLAND CHURCH OF CHRISTCHURCH OF CHRIST IN SANDTOWN: $41,400 · OtherCHURCH OF CHRIST IN SANDTOWNBRIDGEWAY CHURCH OF CHRIST: $38,000 · OtherNORTH ATLANTA CHURCH OF CHRIST: $36,500 · OtherCOMMERCE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $36,000 · OtherHIGHLAND OAKS CHURCH OF CHRIST INC: $35,000 · OtherCEDAR CREST CHURCH OF CHRIST: $35,000 · OtherHARPETH HILLS CHURCH OF CHRIST: $32,511 · OtherAM CHURCH OF CHRIST: $30,500 · OtherHOMEWOOD CHURCH OF CHRIST: $30,000 · OtherEAST SIDE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $28,000 · OtherMERRICK DRIVE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $27,000 · OtherRIVERSIDE CHURCH OF CHRIST: $25,000 · OtherWOODLAND WEST CHURCH OF CHRIST: $25,000 · Other+16 more: $211,883 · Other+16 moreGRIFFIN ROAD CHURCH OF CHRIST INC: $15,000 · ReligionNORTH BRONX CHURCH OF CHRIST: $12,000 · Religion
Other$739,794Religion$27,000

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

25%50%75%100%grantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetGRIFFIN ROAD CHURCH OF CHRIST INC: $15,000 over 1y, 6.0% of budgetNORTH BRONX CHURCH OF CHRIST: $12,000 over 1y, 4.8% 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 GRIFFIN ROAD CHURCH OF CHRIST INC ↗
  • Who funds NORTH BRONX CHURCH OF CHRIST ↗

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Natl Christian Charit…Donor Advised Charita…Fidelity Investments …Amazonsmile Foundation
Natl Christian Charitable Fdn IncGA6.9× affinity5 shared granteesties to 3 of 3Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 10%1%3%6%10%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    1get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    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 Bell Trust?

    Find your warmest path to Bell Trust 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 33 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 Bell’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