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Montana · Private foundation

Buchanan Family Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$38k
Granted FY2025(still arriving)
29
Grants FY2025
2
Organizations funded FY2024
0%
First-time grantees FY2024
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2025
$1,000
Largest grant, FY2025
$5,000
Organizations funded a year
2 to 33
FY2020 to FY2024
States reached, FY2025
13
Total assets, FY2025
$164k
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2024, 0% of the organizations Buchanan Family Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 0% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’21’22’23’24
Crime & LegalInternationalPhilanthropyCivil RightsEducationOther
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.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2025still arriving28$37k0%
FY20242$7k0%
FY202332$57k0%
FY202233$53k12%
FY202133$44k33%
FY202028$48kn/a
96% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Human Services$69kAnimals$28kEducation$24kArts & Culture$24kInternational$21kHousing & Shelter$14kCivil Rights$13kReligion$13kOther$0

Where its grants go

Grant dollars by states, across the years we hold.

Which US states its grants reach

NH
MT
IA
CA
KY
WV
VA
MD
KS
TN
DC
OK
GA
TX

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2020 to FY2025, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

Show all 27 grantees

What it could do for these grantees

Plus 16 recipients with no EIN on record ($50k), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

Each grantee by its size and the share of its budget Buchanan Family Foundation supplied at peak.

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetMissoula Butterfly House and Insectarium: $28,000 over 6y, 0.6% of budgetTrigg - C M Russell Foundation Inc: $23,500 over 5y, 0.1% of budgetDeliverFund: $18,000 over 5y, 0.2% of budgetGary Sinise Foundation: $14,000 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetWounded Warrior Project Inc: $13,000 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetChild Bridge Inc: $12,746 over 5y, 0.1% of budgetPartnerships For Change: $12,000 over 3y, 0.4% of budgetThe University of Montana Foundation: $10,000 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetWatson Children's Shelter Inc: $10,000 over 5y, 0.1% of budgetIntermountain Deaconess Childrens Services: $8,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetMissoula Food Bank & Community Center: $7,000 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetPoverello Center Inc: $6,000 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetGreat Falls Rescue Mission: $4,800 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetNeighborhood Housing Services Inc of Gf: $4,500 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetFriends of Bigfork Fire Department: $3,200 over 5y, 8.0% of budgetMontana Sheriffs and Peace Officers Asso: $3,000 over 3y, 0.2% of budgetMedecins Sans Frontieres USA Inc: $2,500 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetMontana FFA Foundation Inc: $2,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetSt Jude Children's Research Hospital Inc: $1,800 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetMarine Toys for Tots Foundation: $1,400 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetStudents for Life of America Inc: $1,300 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetHomeword Inc: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetAlice Lloyd College: $1,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetSamaritan House Inc: $800 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetFlathead Food Bank Inc: $400 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetEagle Mount: $300 over 1y, 0.0% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 26.

Nonprofits that may fit its grantmaking

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.

Dennis & Phyllis Washington FoundationMT29.8× affinity12 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation · Gianforte Family Charitable Trust · First Interstate BancSystem Foundation Inc · Town Pump Charitable Foundation · Otto Bremer Trust · Montana Community Foundation Inc · Whitefish Community Foundation Inc · Headwaters Health Foundation of Western Montana · M J Murdock Charitable Trust · Alice Lee Lund Charitable Trust · Sample Foundation Inc · Montana Healthcare 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.

Compare Buchanan Family Foundation with peer funders

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Buchanan Family Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Buchanan Family 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.

About Buchanan Family Foundation

How much does Buchanan Family Foundation give?
Buchanan Family Foundation reported 29 grants totaling $37,600 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 2 and 33 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2024.
What does Buchanan Family Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2025, its largest causes are Human Services (27%), Animals (11%), Education (10%).
Who are Buchanan Family Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2020 to FY2025: Missoula Butterfly House and Insectarium ($28k), Trigg - C M Russell Foundation Inc ($24k), DeliverFund ($18k).
Does Buchanan Family Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2024, 0% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Buchanan Family Foundation accept unsolicited applications?
Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Which funders back the same organizations as Buchanan Family Foundation?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation, Gianforte Family Charitable Trust, First Interstate BancSystem Foundation Inc.
Where is Buchanan Family Foundation based?
Buchanan Family Foundation is based in MT.

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 44 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 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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