· Public charity
Best Friends Animal Society
To bring about a time when there are no more homeless pets.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 307 grants below total $16,053,157 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $17,110,976 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $1,057,819 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k79 grants · $547k
- $10k–50k174 grants · $3.8M
- $50k–250k43 grants · $4.0M
- $250k+11 grants · $7.8M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| AUSTIN PETS ALIVE | $2,350,000 |
| JACKSONVILLE HUMANE SOCIETY | $1,394,250 |
| OPERATION KINDNESS | $865,525 |
| HUMANE SOCIETY OF HALL COUNTY - NORTHEAST GEORGIA | $544,900 |
| WEST VALLEY HUMANE SOCIETY | $492,000 |
| THOMASVILLE THOMAS CTY HUMANE SOCIETY | $486,300 |
| SAN DIEGO HUMANE SOCIETY | $399,531 |
| MASSACHUSETTS SPCA | $399,300 |
| HUMANE SOCIETY FOR GREATER SAVANNAH | $316,600 |
| CHARLESTON ANIMAL SOCIETY | $268,990 |
| PAWS FOR LIFE K9 RESCUE | $262,350 |
| ANIMAL RESCUE LEAGUE OF IOWA | $240,000 |
| BETTERTOGETHER FOREVER | $203,750 |
| BELLEVILLE AREA HUMANE SOCIETY | $201,705 |
| ANGEL CITY PIT BULLS | $201,542 |
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 +38% since the first grant, against +23% for the ones you funded once.
352 repeat relationships — 174 still active in FY2024, 178 since wound down; 132 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 84% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.6M 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
- JHJACKSONVILLE HUMANE SOCIETY INC7× · 2017–2024 · $3.0M · revenue +14%
- APAUSTIN PETS ALIVE INC7× · 2017–2024 · $2.8M · revenue +30%
- SCSTRAY CAT ALLIANCE8× · 2017–2024 · $1.7M · revenue +111%
Funded once
- AOACE OF HEARTSgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $898k · revenue +153%
- PBPALM BEACH COUNTY DIVISION OF SENIOR SERVICESone grant, 2017 · $256k
- RCRANDOLPH COUNTY ANIMAL SERVICESone grant, 2023 · $171k
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.
To help injured, abandoned and unwanted animals. We provide food, vet care that includes heartworm prevention and spay or neuter services, shelter and anything else needed.
To help rescue unwanted pets
Animal Rescue - finding homes for abandoned animals in Granite City, spaying and neutering stray animals and feral cats
For our community we provide high quality low cost spay and neuter services as well as low cost vaccinations. we do have programs that allows us to help the families that have pets but are in financial strain and not able to have their…
Find homes for homeless/abandoned dogs. Provide full vet car and housing while awaiting adoption,
The Humane Society of Union County exists to reduce the number of abused, abandoned, and neglected cats and dogs through rescue, rehabilitation, adoption, and spay and neuter.
Animal rescue organization dedicated to finding homes for animals at the animal shelter. we also provde vet care foster homes, and assistance with homing for special needs animals.
Animal Rescue
Animal shelter and rescue
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Animal Friends Humane Society and the most unlike its peers is The Serengeti Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 22 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% 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.
599 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. 599 of the 894 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 JACKSONVILLE HUMANE SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds AUSTIN PETS ALIVE INC ↗
- Who funds STRAY CAT ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds OPERATION KINDNESS ↗
- Who funds KITTEN RESCUE ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY ANIMAL MEDICINE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF HALL COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ↗
- Who funds PALM VALLEY ANIMAL SOCIETY FKA PALM VALLEY ANIMAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds Heaven on Earth Society for Animals Inc ↗
- Who funds BRANDYWINE VALLEY SPCA ↗
- Who funds THOMASVILLE-THOMAS COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds ACE OF HEARTS ↗
- Who funds SAN DIEGO HUMANE SOCIETY AND SPCA ↗
- Who funds ANGEL CITY PIT BULLS ↗
- Who funds KITTY BUNGALOW CHARM SCHOOL FOR WAYWARD CATS ↗
- Who funds WEST VALLEY HUMANE SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds MAYOR'S ALLIANCE FOR NYC'S ANIMALS INC ↗
- Who funds ANIMAL BALANCE ↗
- Who funds CHARLESTON ANIMAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF HARLINGEN ↗
- Who funds THE HUMANE SOCIETY FOR GREATER SAVANNAH ↗
- Who funds LIFELINE ANIMAL PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds PAWS FOR LIFE K9 RESCUE ↗
- Who funds ONE TAIL AT A TIME NFP ↗
- Who funds LYNCHBURG HUMANE SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds FJC ↗
- Who funds Humane Society of Southern Arizona ↗
- Who funds SOURIS VALLEY HUMANE SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds Acadiana Animal Aid ↗
- Who funds ANIMAL RESCUE LEAGUE OF IOWA INC ↗
- Who funds FRESNO HUMANE ANIMAL SERVICES ↗
- Who funds DELAWARE COUNTY SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ↗
- Who funds FixNation Inc ↗
- Who funds SPAY NEUTER INITIATIVE PROGRAM ↗
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: Petco Love · The Duffield Family Foundation Dba Maddie's Fund · The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals · Banfield Foundation · BISSELL Pet Foundation · Petsmart Charities Inc · Greater Good Charities · Humane World for Animals Inc · The Michelson Found Animals Foundation Inc · Pedigree Foundation · The Grey Muzzle Organization · Vca Charities
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 Best Friends Animal Society 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.
- Tlc Petsnip Inc — 1% of income from government
- People for Animals Inc — 1% of income from government
- Halifax Humane Society Inc — 0% of income from government
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 Best Friends Animal Society?
Find your warmest path to Best Friends Animal Society 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.