· Private foundation
Bowers 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 · $20k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $76k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF LA GRANGE | $50,000 |
| RICE UNIVERSITY | $25,900 |
| HOUSTON METHODIST HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| MEMORIAL HERMANN FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| CASA EL BUEN SAMARITANO | $10,000 |
| AGAPE DEVELOPMENT | $9,700 |
| TEXAS BUSINESS HALL OF FAME | $6,000 |
| BRAVO VAIL | $2,360 |
| A RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CAMPAIGN | $1,500 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 63% of your 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.
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 +107% since the first grant, against +40% for the ones you funded once.
17 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 8 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- TMTHE METHODIST HOSPITAL FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2024 · $353k · revenue +129%
- WMWilliam Marsh Rice University8× · 2017–2024 · $97k · revenue +104%
- MHMemorial Hermann Foundation3× · 2022–2024 · $62k · revenue +133%
Funded once
- LRLA ROCA MINISTRIES INCgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue +86%
- CKCAESAR KLEBURG WILDLIFE RESEARCHone grant, 2017 · $5k
- VCVAIL CHRISTIAN HIGH SCHOOLone grant, 2018 · $5k
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 provide high quality, cost-effective health care that delivers the best value to the people we serve in a spiritual environment of caring in association with internationally recognized teaching and research.
See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.
Texas christian university is an institution of higher education which includes nine major academic units: liberal arts, science and engineering, business, education, fine arts, communication, honors, nursing and health sciences, and the…
The museum of fine arts, houston serves as a welcoming and inclusive place for all people, connecting the communities of houston with diverse histories of art spanning 6,000 years and six continents. through our permanent collections,…
The mission of baylor university is to educate men and women for worldwide leadership and service by integrating academic excellence and christian commitment within a caring community.
Memorial hermann health system is a nonprofit, values-driven, community-owned health system dedicated to improving health. our vision is to create healthier communities, now and for generations to come. our values are community,…
This organization is part of the methodist hospital, doing business as houston methodist hospital, whose mission is: to provide high quality, cost-effective health care that delivers the best value to the people we serve in a spiritual…
Nyu is a private university with approximately 60,000 matriculating students in 20 schools and institutes. nyu's primary missions are education, research and scholarship, and patient care.
Methodist Medical Center provides quality healthcare, in alignment with Covenant Health's mission to serve the community by improving the quality of life through better health regardless of a patient's ability to pay.
Assist banner health complete its mission to make health care easier so life can be better by providing integrated & coordinated care & population health management.
Memorial hermann health system is a nonprofit, values-driven, community-owned health system dedicated to improving health. our vision is to create healthier communities, now and for generations to come. our values are community,…
Loyola University New Orleans, a Jesuit and Catholic institution of higher education, welcomes students of diverse backgrounds and prepares them to lead meaningful lives with and for others; to pursue truth, wisdom, and virtue; and to work…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Methodist Hospital Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Samaritan's Purse. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
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 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 13 of the 29 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 THE METHODIST HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK ↗
- Who funds William Marsh Rice University ↗
- Who funds Memorial Hermann Foundation ↗
- Who funds Agape Development Ministries ↗
- Who funds Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation ↗
- Who funds Casa El Buen Samaritano ↗
- Who funds Avondale House Inc ↗
- Who funds LA ROCA MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds GROUP 1 FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAN'S PURSE ↗
- Who funds HOUSTON LIVESTOCK SHOW AND RODEO INC ↗
- Who funds KHAN ACADEMY INC ↗
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: Greater Houston Community Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 organization Bowers 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.
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 Bowers Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Bowers 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.