· Private foundation
Carmax Foundation
Its FY2026 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
Read this first · the figures below need context
70% of Carmax Foundation’s FY2026 grant dollars went to American Online Giving Foundation Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2026 names 5 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2021, the last year Carmax Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 718 organizations, $5M. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2026.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- Under $10k957 grants · $799k
- $10k–50k165 grants · $2.0M
- $50k–250k7 grants · $793k
- $250k+3 grants · $1.8M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| KABOOM | $1,046,666 |
| CHARITIES AID FOUNDATION AMERICA | $429,675 |
| CHARITIES AID FOUNDATION AMERICA | $357,547 |
| CHARITIES AID FOUNDATION AMERICA | $242,001 |
| EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE FOUNDATION INC | $210,000 |
| CHARITIES AID FOUNDATION AMERICA | $131,000 |
| FEED MORE INC | $60,000 |
| PETER PAUL DEVELOPMENT CENTER | $50,000 |
| THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION SERVING RI | $50,000 |
| COMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS OF RICHMOND | $50,000 |
| YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION O | $35,000 |
| THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION SERVING RI | $25,500 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF METRO RICHMON | $25,000 |
| MUST MINISTRIES | $25,000 |
| ENCOMPASS MINISTRIES | $25,000 |
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 (FY17–26, $2.7M) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 62% 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 36% of Carmax Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 22% of the giving stays in VA; read by stated purpose it is 27% — more of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +47% since the first grant, against +38% for the ones you funded once.
1498 repeat relationships — 579 still active in FY2021, 919 since wound down; 63 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (too recent to call). Read against FY2021, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2026, 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
- POPOINTS OF LIGHT FOUNDATION4× · 2023–2026 · $3.1M · revenue +9%
- PHProject Helping3× · 2022–2024 · $498k · revenue +8%
- CICOMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS OF RICHMOND INC7× · 2017–2023 · $396k · revenue +44%
Funded once
- PFPARTNERSHIP FOR NONPROFIT EXCELLENCEone grant, 2017 · $27k
- TCTHE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION SERVING RICHMOND AND CENTRAL VIRGINIAone grant, 2017 · $26k
- BGBOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF RICHMOND VA INCone grant, 2017 · $25k
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.
Petconnect rescue is a foster-based animal welfare organization dedicated to saving at-risk dogs and cats, providing them with high quality care, and adopting them to loving homes. we are committed to ensuring a highly positive rescue…
On a mission to connect every person facing hunger with nutritious meals... feeding san diego is on a mission to connect every person facing hunger with nutritious meals by maximizing food rescue. through direct service and community…
Uniting communities to alleviate hunger.
Dogs playing for life is redefining the meaning and importance of quality of life for all sheltered dogs by improving their experience through playgroups and individualized training, resulting in urgent and responsible livesaving.
Improving the lives of animals and people through advocacy, education, and support.
Our mission is to encourage, honor and support the human-animal bond in the suncoastregion of florida. our vision is to celebrate a community whose pets are safe andloved. suncoast humane society provides sheltering, prevention and…
Children's services
The humane compassionate treatment of all animals.
To advance the rights and opportunities of children and youth worldwide.
To maximize programs intended to stop killing of adoptable animals.
Sheltering homeless animals, facilitating adoption, providing low-cost spay/neuter services, and foster care for dogs and cats.
Animal welfare organization
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Joint Opportunities and the most unlike its peers is The Tech Interactive. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 32 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
1442 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. 1442 of the 2,000 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 AMERICAN ONLINE GIVING FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds KABOOM INC ↗
- Who funds CHARITIES AID FOUNDATION AMERICA ↗
- Who funds POINTS OF LIGHT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Project Helping ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS OF RICHMOND INC ↗
- Who funds PETER PAUL DEVELOPMENT CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds ENRICHMOND FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FEED MORE INC ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds BLUE SKY FUND ↗
- Who funds PARTNERSHIP FOR THE FUTURE ↗
- Who funds GREATER RICHMOND SCAN - STOP CHILD ABUSE NOW INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER RICHMOND FIT4KIDS INC ↗
- Who funds ELK HILL FARM INC ↗
- Who funds SIDE BY SIDE VA INC ↗
- Who funds COMFORT ZONE CAMP INC ↗
- Who funds Junior Achievement of Georgia ↗
- Who funds HIGHER ACHIEVEMENT PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds THE MISSION CONTINUES ↗
- Who funds Feeding America ↗
- Who funds YWCA RICHMOND ↗
- Who funds GOOCHLAND EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF METRO RICHMOND ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA HOME FOR BOYS AND GIRLS ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS ASSOCIATION FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds GoochlandCares ↗
- Who funds Young Men's Christian Association of Greater Richmond (6769) ↗
- Who funds Children's Museum of Richmond ↗
- Who funds HENRICO EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds BULLARD QUARTERBACK CLUB ↗
- Who funds ENCOMPASS MINISTRIES INC fka PAPAS PANTRY INC ↗
- Who funds JAMES MADISON UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF COLLIN COUNTY 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: Herndon Foundation · The Pauley Family Foundation · Virginia Nonprofit Housing Coalition · Robins Foundation · The Mary Morton Parsons Foundation · Shelton H Short Jr Trust · Richmond Memorial Health Foundation · Tesco Foundation · Universal Leaf Foundation · Robert G Cabell III and Maude Morgan Cabell Foundation · The William H - John G - Emma Scott Foundation · United Way of Greater Richmond & Petersburg
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 Carmax 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.
- Druid Heights Community Development Corporation — 100% of income from government
- The Boys and Girls Clubs of Hartford — 20% of income from government
- Community Harvest Project Inc — 18% of income from government
- Pact Helping Children With Special Needs Inc — 16% of income from government
- City Year Inc — 11% of income from government
- Oregon Museum of Science and Industry — 4% of income from government
- Easter Seals South Florida Inc — 1% of income from government
- Ann Storck Center Inc — 0% of income from government
- Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida Inc — 0% of income from government
- Place of Hope Inc — 0% 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.