· Public charity
Building Memphis
BLDG Memphis drives investments in Memphis neighborhoods thru building capacity in supporting revitalization of Memphis neighborhods thru public policy development & advocacy, organizational capacity building & community education.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2022.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Alcy Ball CDC | $46,167 |
| Greater Whitehaven Economic | $25,000 |
| Klondike Smokey | $22,833 |
| Frayser CDC | $22,833 |
| The Heights | $22,833 |
| Kingdom Community Builders | $22,833 |
| B Score | $16,583 |
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 (FY19–22, $87k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 19%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +153% since the first grant, against -30% for the ones you funded once.
4 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2022, 2 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2022 (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 FY2022, 26% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $133k 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
- CFCENTER FOR TRANSFORMING COMMUNITIES2× · 2019–2020 · $43k · revenue -35%
- KSKLONDIKE SMOKEY CITY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORA2× · 2019–2022 · $35k · revenue +153%
- HCHEIGHTS COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION2× · 2020–2022 · $29k
Funded once
- VEVollintine Evergreen Community Assocgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $33k · revenue +119%
- CCCROSSTOWN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATIONone grant, 2019 · $27k
- MLMethodist Le Bonheur Community Outreachgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $25k · revenue +27%
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 promote the economic development, cultural activities, recreational choices, and historical integrity of Midtown Memphis.
Assist private development projects
Our vision is to seek the wholistic wellbeing of the Jackson neighborhood, where residents are known, valued, and empowered to collaborate for the thriving of its people and place.
The mission of the TCDC is to function as a development engine committed to providing faith-based leadership, housing, and human service, which will serve as a foundation for revitalization and restoration of under-served and underutilized…
Rev birmingham (rev) creates vibrant commercial districts.
Work to suport commercial, mixed use, and residential progress and effective community, economic, and aesthetic development to create and encourage the renewal and vitality of Midtown Kansas City, Missouri.
Community redevelopment
Create permanently affordable housing with community-centered development in West Charlotte and beyond
Acquire and rehabilitate property on the west side of belleville, illinois to prevent blight.
To facilitate, develop, and advocate for neighborhood revitalization, affordable housing construction, preservation and economic development in Charleston County.
The mission of the Village Development Corporation is to continually revitalize the community by increasing home hownership, supporting business development, and by eliminating blight.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Frayser Community Development Corporation and the most unlike its peers is Whitehaven Economic Development Corporation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 20 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 ALCY BALL DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR TRANSFORMING COMMUNITIES ↗
- Who funds KLONDIKE SMOKEY CITY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORA ↗
- Who funds Vollintine Evergreen Community Assoc ↗
- Who funds Methodist Le Bonheur Community Outreach ↗
- Who funds WHITEHAVEN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY LIFT CORP ↗
- Who funds MEMPHIS TILTH ↗
- Who funds FRAYSER COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds SOUTH CITY OPPORTUNITY REVITAL ↗
- Who funds LEGACY OF LEGENDS CDC ↗
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: Community Lift Corp · Community Foundation of Greater Memphis Inc · The Kresge Foundation · United Way of the Mid South · Christian Community Foundation of Memphis · 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 Building Memphis 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.