· Private foundation
Birdsong Charitable 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.
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.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k4 grants · $9k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $90k
- $50k–250k11 grants · $900k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GLOBAL ACTION PLATFORM | $100,000 |
| NANSEMOND SUFFOLK ACADEMY | $100,000 |
| SUFFOLK CENTER FOR THE CULTURAL ART | $100,000 |
| GLOBAL ACTION PLATFORM | $100,000 |
| SUFFOLK CENTER FOR THE CULTURAL ART | $100,000 |
| OPERATION SMILE | $100,000 |
| RANDOLPH MACON COLLEGE | $100,000 |
| RANDOLPH MACON COLLEGE | $50,000 |
| GLOBAL ACTION PLATFORM | $50,000 |
| NANSEMOND SUFFOLK ACADEMY | $50,000 |
| SUFFOLK YOUTH ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION | $50,000 |
| MANA NUTRITION | $30,000 |
| RAPPAHANNOCK GENERAL HOSPITAL | $25,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| SUFFOLK CENTER FOR THE CULTURAL ART | $10,000 |
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 (FY17–23, $831k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +25% for the ones you funded once.
82 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2024, 74 since wound down; 3 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, 73% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $265k 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
- NSNANSEMOND SUFFOLK ACADEMY ASSOCIATION INC5× · 2018–2024 · $1.2M · revenue +65%
- RWRAPPAHANNOCK WESTMINSTER-CANTERBURY INC5× · 2017–2021 · $803k · revenue +68%
- RCRANDOLPH-MACON COLLEGE3× · 2020–2024 · $550k · revenue +32%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2023 · $200k
- PPPROJECT PEANUT BUTTERone grant, 2021 · $100k · revenue -45%
- TCTHE CHRYSLER MUSEUM INCORPORATEDgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $55k · revenue +36%
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.
The foundation determines the patentability and obtains patents on virginia commonwealth university (vcu) inventions and markets and licenses such inventions to commerical entities. the foundation's activities promote research efforts at…
To provide investment and investment management and related services to the rector and the board of visitors of virginia commonwealth university (vcu), and/or to the private and independent foundations and other entities affiliated with…
The university of virginia investment management company (uvimco) is organized to invest funds on behalf of the rector and visitors of the university of virginia (the university or uva) and university-associated organizations (uaos).
To educate a diverse body of students to thrive in a college setting and beyond.
To provide administrative services to university of virginia (university) entities, university associated organizations, or other entities involved in activities which support the university. to engage in matters pertaining to real…
To secure financial support that enables college-bound students to access and graduate from outstanding virginia independent higher education institutions.
To deliver important healthcare services with exceptional quality and patient-centered care.
The richmond symphony performs, teaches and champions music to inspire and unite our communities.
The mission of the edward via college of osteopathic medicine (vcom) is to prepare globally-minded, community-focused physicians to meet the needs of rural and medically underserved populations and promote research to improve human health.
To provide excellence in the delivery of healthcare.
The virginia association of museums is a statewide network serving the museum community. the association's mission statement is "the virginia association of museums helps our museum community succeed".
To assist rural virginians in developing and advancing their agricultural, economic and social interests to enhance their quality of life.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Suffolk Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Birdsong Trust Fund. 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 40 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 25% startups (under 5 years old) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
71 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. 71 of the 169 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 NANSEMOND SUFFOLK ACADEMY ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds RAPPAHANNOCK WESTMINSTER-CANTERBURY INC ↗
- Who funds RANDOLPH-MACON COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds The Peanut Research Foundation ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds OPERATION SMILE INC ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL ACTION PLATFORM ↗
- Who funds United Way of South Hampton Roads ↗
- Who funds BIRDSONG TRUST FUND ↗
- Who funds COLQUITTMILLER ARTS COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds SUFFOLK YOUTH ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters ↗
- Who funds SUFFOLK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PROJECT PEANUT BUTTER ↗
- Who funds PEANUT PROUD INC ↗
- Who funds THE CHRYSLER MUSEUM INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST GEORGIA ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds MANA NUTRITIVE AID PRODUCTS INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds CHESAPEAKE BAY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds HAMPDEN-SYDNEY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds WESTERN TIDEWATER FREE CLINIC INC ↗
- Who funds STAR COUNCIL ON SUBSTANCE ABUSE ↗
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: Hampton Roads Community Foundation · Townebank Foundation · Suffolk Foundation · Obici Healthcare Foundation Inc · The Pruden Foundation · Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation · Beazley Foundation Incorporated · The Blocker Foundation · Birdsong Trust Fund · United Way of South Hampton Roads · Goode Family Foundation · Mary C Henninger Haddad and Louis S Haddad 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 Birdsong Charitable 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.
- Chesapeake Bay Foundation Inc — 2% 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
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Find your warmest path to Birdsong Charitable 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.