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· Public charity
BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU
To be the leader in advancing marketplace trust.
$6.4M
Granted FY2021
281
Grants
1
Communities
$40k
Largest
01What you fund
01
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 78% of BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU’s grantee dollars go to organizations outside the IRS cause taxonomy (common for large international and research funders), so a chart would be mostly “unclassified” and misrepresent the portfolio.
02FY2021 · 281 grants
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- Under $10k12 grants · $88k
- $10k–50k269 grants · $6.3M
$20,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$12M
Total assets
Largest grants
- HILL COUNTRY WEAVERS$40,000
- JULIO'S MOTORS LLC$40,000
- RUSTY MAMMOTH LLC$40,000
- SUNNY F OGUNRO CPA PLLC$40,000
- TRASHLESS INC$40,000
- THE PANACEA COLLECTION LLC$40,000
- MOONTIME LLC$40,000
- THE BEE ON 6TH STREET LLC$40,000
- THE AUSTIN BARREL CONCEPT$40,000
- GAMINE LLC$40,000
- TRADE FINISHING AND GRAPHIC SERVICES LLC$40,000
- TEXAS TECH SOLUTIONS INC$40,000
- YOGAHOUSE AUSTIN LLC$40,000
- KHADIJAH LLC$40,000
- FIGURE 8 COFFEE PURVEYORS LLC$40,000
02The need
03
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.
show:
Your human-services grants (FY20–21, $655k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10% — the area typically sits at 8%. 97% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
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; 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
03Your edge
repeat funding
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.
13%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$4.1M · 107 repeat orgs$26M to everyone else
107 repeat relationships — 107 still active in FY2021, 0 since wound down; 174 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Re-uppedFunded once
Organizations
107
860
Total granted
$4.1M
$22M
Median revenue growth · since first grant
+34%
+49%
Still filing today
88%
22%
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2021, 34% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4.2M went to new ones.
RenewedFirst-time
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
Arts & CultureEducationHuman ServicesHealthRecreation & SportsYouth DevelopmentOther
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
- ALAUSTIN LYRIC OPERA2× · 2020–2021 · $40k · revenue +105%
- GTGERMAN TEXAN HERITAGE SOCIETY2× · 2020–2021 · $40k · revenue +363%
- MMMEXIC-ARTE MUSEUM2× · 2020–2021 · $40k · revenue +39%
Funded once
- WCWAGENBLAST CHIROPRACTIC PLLCone grant, 2020 · $52k
- MVMCCORMICK VISION PCone grant, 2020 · $40k
- SDSOUTHSTONE DEVELOPMENT GROUP LLCone grant, 2020 · $40k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
04Your field
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.
1
The Austin Area Commission for the Arts
Applaud and advance all arts by welcoming diverse, creative individuals to inspire our community.
Philanthropy
2
TexArts Association for Visual &
TexARTS is an arts education and performance destination that builds character, professionalism, and careers. Its mission is to cultivate a thriving arts community by exposing all people to the visual and performing arts.
Arts & Culture
3
Tx Performing Chinese Arts
—
4
Atx Chamber Music and Jazz
ATX Chamber Music and Jazz aims to present the most innovative, engaging, and immersive chamber music and jazz performances available anywhere.
Arts & Culture
5
Center for Austin Independent Journalism
To equip Austinites to make informed decisions through independent, in-depth reporting, diverse opinions, and civil dialogue.
Arts & Culture
6
Austin City Art Fund
To support the production and exhibition of art and film
Arts & Culture
7
Good Work Austin
Good Work Austin's mission is to foster healthy careers in the local food and beverage industry through professional development and advocacy for more equitable practices.
Public Benefit
8
Young Texas Artists Inc
Produce a quality classical music competiton and related events that encourage excellence in young Texas musicians, inspire their audiences, and enrich the culture in the State of Texas.
Arts & Culture
9
Texas Cultural Trust Council
Public arts funding
Philanthropy
10
The McCombs School of Business
To provide support to The University of Texas McCombs School of Business.
Education
11
Honktx
Festival to provide free music to the community.
Community Improvement
12
Cultura Brasil in Austin
Cultura Brasil in Austin promotes art and cultural education by sponsoring and providing programs related to various aspects of the Brazilian culture including language classes, visual and performing arts, a library lectures, workshops,…
Arts & Culture
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Generation Serve and the most unlike its peers is The College Houses. 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 19 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 29% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
Closures · last 5 years
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.7% lost their exemption, against 12% of the field you don’t fund.
orgs you fund
0.7%8/1,141
the rest of the field
12%
949/7,810
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.
04the grantee network
365 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.
39
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
157
Early backer (in before they grew)
339/365
Grantees still filing
255/365
Grew since you first funded
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Other$24,384,027Arts & Culture$3,845,667Education$778,367Human Services$714,833Recreation & Sports$286,455Health$284,318Youth Development$276,061
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.
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.
United Way for Greater AustinTX98.5× affinity75 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →
Open a dossier: United Way for Greater Austin · St David's Foundation · Austin Community Foundation Inc · Shield-Ayres Foundation · Greater Austin Performing Arts Center · The Webber Family Foundation · Alice Kleberg Reynolds Meyer Foundat A0479800 · Topfer Family Foundation · The Applied Materials Foundation · Harry E and Eda L Montandon Charitable Tr · A Glimmer of Hope Foundation Austin · Impact Austin 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 organisation BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU 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.
2024
’20’21’22’23’24
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%
typical government reliance, FY20–24
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. 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.
05Through Plinth
Through Plinth
Your grantmaking, live and operational
This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: TEXAS MUSIC MUSEUM INC.
Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk
Financial management
insufficient risk
Limited financial data in public filings.
Track record & reputation
low risk
7 years of Form 990 filings, still active; revenue up 5.1× since.
Legal standing
low risk
US 501(c)(3); EIN 742315927 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.
Governance
Live in Plinth
Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.
Compliance & sanctions
Live in Plinth
OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.
Program capacity
Live in Plinth
Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.
Live · Plinth’s real DD engine
Run the actual assessment on TEXAS MUSIC MUSEUM INC, cold from public data.
Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.
Post-award monitoring · continuous checks
- Awaiting reportFinancial stability— Runway not derivable from filings.
- On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2024; revenue grew over the period.
- WatchReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 91% of their budget — load-bearing; a dependency Plinth would track.
- Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.
What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.
Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing
Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro
How do I get to Better Business Bureau?
Find your warmest path to Better Business Bureau through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.
Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.
More from the funding graph
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars pass through an intermediary
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
Strange bedfellows
the named clusters of US funding
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home
State money flows
the interactive map of money crossing state lines