· Private foundation
Clifton and Clara Ward 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k8 grants · $150k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $685k
- $250k+1 grant · $799k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BRYAN COLLEGE CLARA WARD SCHOOL OF NURSING | $799,061 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF FOX RIVER VALLEY | $200,000 |
| THE GENEROSITY TRUST | $135,000 |
| CASA KANE COUNTY | $100,000 |
| WILLIAMSBURG COMMUNITY CHAPEL | $100,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF GREATER CHATTANOOGA | $75,000 |
| LIPSCOMB UNIVERSITY | $75,000 |
| HAGGAI INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED LEADERSHIP TRAINING | $25,000 |
| BIBLE IN THE SCHOOLS | $20,000 |
| BETHEL BIBLE VILLAGE | $20,000 |
| TEACHING TO TEACH | $20,000 |
| ANKERBERG THEOLOGICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE | $20,000 |
| IDEALS FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| LIFE ACTION MINISTRIES | $15,000 |
| NATIONAL CENTER FOR YOUTH ISSUES | $15,000 |
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 (FY20–25, $170k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
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 +20% since the first grant, against -31% for the ones you funded once.
13 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 16% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.2M 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
HAGGAI INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED LEADERSHIP TRAINING INC5× · 2020–2025 · $125k · revenue +20%- BBBethel Bible Village5× · 2020–2025 · $120k · revenue +31%
- LALIFE ACTION MINISTRIES5× · 2020–2025 · $75k · revenue +26%
Funded once
- BBBRAINERD BAPTIST CHURCHone grant, 2021 · $100k
- RTRENEW THERAPEUTIC RIDING CENTERone grant, 2024 · $50k · revenue -31%
- LVLOOKOUT VALLEY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHone grant, 2022 · $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.
Christianity Today is a global community inspired by evangelical conviction to advance the stories and ideas of the kingdom of God. Our mission is to elevate the storytellers and sages of the global church.
Regent University serves as a center of Christian thought and action to provide excellent education through a Biblical perspective and global context equipping Christian leaders to change the world.
The academy will seek to create a desire to know and serve god in the hearts of our students by equipping them academically, physically, spiritually, and socially to fulfill god's purpose for their lives.
The mission of houston christian university is to provide a learning experience that instills in students a passion for academic, spiritual, and professional excellence as a result of our central confession, "jesus christ is lord."
As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.
Post secondary and graduate educational institution The mission of Faith Baptist Bible College and Theological Seminary is to equip vocational Christian workers and other servant leaders while inspiring them to take the Word to the world.
Arborbrook Christian Academy partners with parents to equip, empower, and encourage students to cultivate godly character, pursue life-long learning, and love the Lord Jesus Christ.
Central christian college of the bible (central) exists to develop servant-leaders for the church. as a traditional undergraduate bible college of the restoration movement, central equips faithful men and women for leadership ministry.
To educate, train, and develop ministers, evangelists, missionaries, and other people who are going to enter the Christian ministry. Educate ministers and missionaries to serve the Lord.
Provide education in theology, divinity, religious education, ministerial training, business and organizational leadership.
Manna University is a biblical higher education institution dedicated to educating, equipping, and empowering emerging leaders to change the world.
Through prayerful dependence on god, dayton christian schools (lmi) provides a biblically integrated, academically rigorous educational experience. instilling in students a love for christ and god's word, a love for learning, and a love…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Haggai International Institute for Advanced Leadership Training Inc and the most unlike its peers is Ideals Foundation Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
15 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. 15 of the 23 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 BRYAN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds DREAM CATCHERS ↗
- Who funds CASA KANE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds SHAOHANNAHS HOPE INC dba SHOW HOPE ↗
- Who funds CHATTANOOGA CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HAGGAI INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ADVANCED LEADERSHIP TRAINING INC ↗
- Who funds ANKERBERG THEOLOGICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Bethel Bible Village ↗
- Who funds LIFE ACTION MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds The Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga Inc ↗
- Who funds LIPSCOMB UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds PUBLIC SCHOOL BIBLE STUDY COMMITTEE ↗
- Who funds IDEALS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL CENTER FOR YOUTH ISSUES ↗
- Who funds RENEW THERAPEUTIC RIDING CENTER ↗
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: The Joe and Velma Dewitt Foundation · Weldon F Osborne Foundation Inc · Chattanooga Christian Community Foundation · Robert L & Kathrina H Maclellan Founda Foundation · Hugh and Charlotte Maclellan Charitable Charitable Trust · The Maclellan Foundation Inc · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Renaissance Charitable Foundation Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
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 Clifton and Clara Ward 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 Clifton and Clara Ward Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Clifton and Clara Ward 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.