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Foundation DossiersMostly funded, not a grantmaker — see who funds it →
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· Public charity

Champions for Literacy

Use the power of sports to raise awareness about the cause of literacy, generate funds for local literacy programs, and create volunteer activities for athletes to promote the power of reading to students pre-school through third grade.

$307k
Granted FY2025still arriving
13
Grants FY2025still arriving
9
States reached
$48k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your edgeRead
04Your fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What you fund
01100% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.

Education$1.7M
02FY2025 · 13 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

The 13 grants below total $252,689 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $306,706 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $54,017 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.

$18,675
Median grant
9
States reached
$666k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
UNITED WAY OF PICKENS COUNTY CAMP IROCK$48,091
UNITED WAY OF THE PLAINS$25,142
MEMPHIS TEACHER RESIDENCY$23,829
KNOWLEDGE QUEST$23,077
READERS 2 LEADERS$20,000
THE 2ND & 7 FOUNDATION$20,000
SMART READING$18,675
HEART OF MISSOURI UNITED WAY$15,852
INDIAN PRAIRIE EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION$15,000
LITERACY MID-SOUTH$11,543
BELIEVE MEMPHIS ACADEMY$11,480
MEMPHIS ATHLETIC MINISTRIES$10,000
EARLY LEARNING COALITION OF THE BIG BEND$10,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY17–24, $130k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 12%LITERACY NOW: $21k → 16%RAISING READER IN STORY COUNTY: $5k → 17%THE CHILDREN'S CENTER: $6k → 12%LITERACY NOW: $16k → 16%RAISING READER IN STORY COUNTY: $5k → 17%ALBERTA HEADSTART: $10k → 17%LITERACY NOW: $16k → 16%LITERACY NOW: $14k → 16%ALBERTA HEADSTART: $6k → 17%STREETS MINISTRIES: $15k → 17%STREETS MINISTRIES: $9k → 17%STREETS MINISTRIES: $5k → 17%STREETS MINISTRIES INC: $603 → 17%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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

IL
OR
IA
OH
MO
VA
MD
KS
TN
NC
SC
LA
MS
AL
GA
TX
FL

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

87%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$1.5M · 30 repeat orgs$218k to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +2% since the first grant, against +1% for the ones you funded once.

30 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2025, 20 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

30
22

Total granted

$1.5M
$184k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+2%
+1%

Still filing today

77%
55%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 87% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $33k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
EducationHuman ServicesPhilanthropyYouth DevelopmentArts & CultureRecreation & SportsOther

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

  • UW
    UNITED WAY OF PICKENS COUNTY
    5× · 2021–2025 · $220k · revenue +90%
  • UW
    UNITED WAY OF THE PLAINS INC
    5× · 2021–2025 · $151k · revenue +8%
  • MT
    MEMPHIS TEACHER RESIDENCY INC
    9× · 2017–2025 · $133k · revenue +4%

Funded once

  • FF
    FOUNDATION FOR ORANGE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS INCgraduated
    one grant, 2021 · $22k · revenue +125%
  • LT
    LOUISIANA TECH UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INCgraduated
    one grant, 2021 · $16k · revenue +27%
  • BE
    Book Em
    one grant, 2022 · $16k · revenue -25%

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

1
Read to a Child Inc

Read to a child's mission is to foster a love of reading, improve literacy skills and support socio-emotional well-being in students from under-resourced communities.

Education
2
Reading Results

Reading results partners with schools to support students from systemically excluded communities in becoming successful readers. we believe that literacy is a basic human right, and we work to increase access and break down barriers…

—
3
Ready Readers

Ready readers expands literacy for young children in low- incomecommunities through high-quality books, strong relationships, andliteracy-related experiences.

Education
4
Tennesseans for Quality Early Education

To advance state policies and practices that ensure all tennessee children from birth through 3rd grade get the high quality early education they need to power our state's future.

Education
5
Early Learning Coalition of Duval Inc

Create a coordinated and integrated system for school readiness services to better prepare children for entry into kindergarten, with an emphasis on literacy skills for children who may be at risk for future school failure.

Education
6
Every Child a Reader in Escambia Inc Ecare

To maximize childrens potential through increased school readiness.

Education
7
Ar Kids Read

The organization is a community volunteer-based program designed to provide struggling readers and their families with access to trained tutors who donate time on a regular basis. the focus of these volunteer tutors is children who need to…

Youth Development
8
Team Read

Year-round, one-to-one tutoring program provided at Title 1 schools to students not at grade-level proficiency in reading. Tutors are area teens recruited and trained to deliver reading support.

Education
9
Read Alliance Inc

Read alliance, inc (read alliance) works to accelerate the educational trajectory of early elementary students through the power of teens who provide one-to-one literacy tutoring in under-resourced communities. read impacts two populations…

Education
10
Springboard Collaborative

Springboard collaborative combines targeted student instruction with parent training in an incentivized system that closes the literacy gap, by transferring the summer from a barrier into a springboard for financially disadvantaged…

Human Services
11
The Children's Reading Foundation

The mission is to support children in learning to read early and well, speciically reading on grade-level by the completion of third grade.

Education
12
Preschool Partners

Provide an inclusive and diverse learning environment that prepares preschool children and their families for success through high quality curriculum, nurturing educators, parental engagement, and community collaboration

Education

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Reading Partners and the most unlike its peers is Starkville Oktibbeha Consolidated School District Pto. 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.

← shrinkinggrowing →↓ leaning in → pulling backsteadyUnited Way AffiliatesElementary Literacy TutoringIndependent K-12 SchoolsSchool District FoundationsCommunity College Foundatio…Community FoundationsYouth Sports ProgramsChild Abuse Advocacy Servic…
the sector your giving your giving is ahead of the sector the sector’s ahead of you· dot size = how much the theme matters to each side
Ordered by the change in your giving — leaning in on top, pulling back at the bottom. The bar between the two dots is how out of step you are with the sector. Hover any row for detail.

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 37 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number22%0%<5yr14%0%5–10yr19%12%10–20yr16%35%20–35yr13%29%35–55yr16%24%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value22%0%<5yr14%0%5–10yr19%10%10–20yr16%31%20–35yr13%16%35–55yr16%43%55yr+

The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
0.0%0/47
the rest of the field
13%
240,396/1,819,518

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.

04the grantee network

38 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. 38 of the 56 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
6
Early backer (in before they grew)
38/38
Grantees still filing
20/38
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

UNITED WAY OF PICKENS COUNTY — $219,878 · OtherUNITED WAY OF PICKENS COUNTYHEART OF MISSOURI UNITED WAY INC — $53,927 · OtherHEART OF MISSOURI UNITED WAY INCWEBBER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL — $45,986 · OtherWEBBER ELEMENTARY SCHOOLStarkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District — $33,319 · OtherStarkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School…BRANTLEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL — $30,575 · OtherAUBURN UNIVERSITY — $25,575 · OtherFOUNDATION FOR ORANGE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS INC — $21,940 · OtherIndividual grant recipient — $20,255 · Other+15 more — $154,466 · Other+15 moreMEMPHIS TEACHER RESIDENCY INC — $133,012 · EducationMEMPHIS TEACHER RESIDENCY …SMART READING — $50,005 · EducationSMART READINGESCAMBIA COUNTY SCHOOL READINESS COALITION INC — $44,931 · EducationESCAMBIA COUNTY SCHOOL REA…EARLY LEARNING COALITION OF THE BIG BEND REGION INC — $40,945 · EducationEARLY LEARNING COALITION O…INDIAN PRAIRIE EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION — $30,000 · EducationINDIAN PRAIRIE EDUCATIONAL…CARE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL INC — $18,790 · EducationFREEDOM READERS INC — $17,375 · EducationLOUISIANA TECH UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC — $16,434 · EducationBook Em — $16,167 · Education+6 more — $35,294 · Education+6 moreUNITED WAY OF THE PLAINS INC — $150,567 · PhilanthropyUNITED WAY OF …TUSCALOOSA CITY SCHOOLS EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION INC — $25,489 · PhilanthropyTUSCALOOSA CIT…UNITED WAY OF GREATER CHARLOTTESVILLE — $15,700 · PhilanthropyUNITED WAY OF …UNITED WAY OF WEST CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI INC — $15,185 · PhilanthropyUNITED WAY OF …+1 more — $5,000 · PhilanthropyREADERS 2 LEADERS — $72,594 · Youth DevelopmentREADERS 2 …KNOWLEDGE QUEST INC — $67,544 · Youth DevelopmentKNOWLEDGE …BIG BUDDY PROGRAM — $15,010 · Youth DevelopmentBIG BUDDY …Making It Better dba Literacy Now — $66,927 · Human ServicesMaking It…STREETS MINISTRIES INC — $40,679 · Human ServicesSTREETS M…COMMUNITY SERVICE PROGRAMS OF WEST ALABAMA INC — $16,531 · Human ServicesCOMMUNITY…RAISING READERS IN STORY COUNTY — $10,579 · Human ServicesRAISING R…Love Works — $6,276 · Human ServicesTHE CHILDREN'S CENTER — $6,000 · Human ServicesTHE 2ND AND 7 FOUNDATION — $100,501 · Recreation & SportsGEORGIA FAMILY CONNECTION PARTNERSHIP INC — $58,838 · Arts & CultureMISSISSIPPI CHILDREN'S MUSEUM — $3,000 · Arts & CultureMEMPHIS ATHLETIC MINISTRIES INC — $10,000 · Religion
Other$605,921Education$402,953Philanthropy$211,941Youth Development$155,148Human Services$146,992Recreation & Sports$100,501Arts & Culture$61,838Religion$10,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetUNITED WAY OF PICKENS COUNTY — $219,878 over 5y, 3.9% of budgetUNITED WAY OF THE PLAINS INC — $150,567 over 5y, 0.2% of budgetMEMPHIS TEACHER RESIDENCY INC — $133,012 over 9y, 0.3% of budgetTHE 2ND AND 7 FOUNDATION — $100,501 over 5y, 3.5% of budgetREADERS 2 LEADERS — $72,594 over 4y, 1.2% of budgetKNOWLEDGE QUEST INC — $67,544 over 5y, 0.6% of budgetMaking It Better dba Literacy Now — $66,927 over 4y, 1.0% of budgetGEORGIA FAMILY CONNECTION PARTNERSHIP INC — $58,838 over 5y, 0.3% of budgetHEART OF MISSOURI UNITED WAY INC — $53,927 over 3y, 0.7% of budgetSMART READING — $50,005 over 3y, 0.5% of budgetESCAMBIA COUNTY SCHOOL READINESS COALITION INC — $44,931 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetEARLY LEARNING COALITION OF THE BIG BEND REGION INC — $40,945 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetSTREETS MINISTRIES INC — $40,679 over 5y, 0.8% of budgetINDIAN PRAIRIE EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION — $30,000 over 2y, 5.2% of budgetTUSCALOOSA CITY SCHOOLS EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION INC — $25,489 over 2y, 5.3% of budgetFOUNDATION FOR ORANGE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS INC — $21,940 over 1y, 0.7% of budgetUNITED WAY OF NORTHWEST LOUISIANA — $20,150 over 2y, 0.6% of budgetCARE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL INC — $18,790 over 3y, 0.4% of budgetFREEDOM READERS INC — $17,375 over 2y, 3.7% of budgetCOMMUNITY SERVICE PROGRAMS OF WEST ALABAMA INC — $16,531 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetLOUISIANA TECH UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC — $16,434 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetBook Em — $16,167 over 1y, 1.7% of budgetUNITED WAY OF GREATER CHARLOTTESVILLE — $15,700 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetUNITED WAY OF WEST CENTRAL MISSISSIPPI INC — $15,185 over 2y, 0.7% of budgetBIG BUDDY PROGRAM — $15,010 over 2y, 0.5% of budgetTHE LEAP FROG PROGRAM INC — $11,700 over 2y, 7.9% of budgetLITERACY MID-SOUTH INC — $11,543 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetRAISING READERS IN STORY COUNTY — $10,579 over 2y, 1.9% of budgetREADY FOR SCHOOL READY FOR LIFE — $10,039 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetMEMPHIS ATHLETIC MINISTRIES INC — $10,000 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetCRAVEN COUNTY PARTNERS IN EDUCATION INC — $6,200 over 1y, 2.7% of budgetCOLUMBUS COUNTY PARTNERSHIP FOR CHILDREN INC — $6,200 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetTHE CHILDREN'S CENTER — $6,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCOMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF NORTH TEXAS (TAX — $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetMISSISSIPPI CHILDREN'S MUSEUM — $3,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

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.

Dollar General Litera…International Paper C…United Way WorldwideThe Kemmons Wilson Fa…AT&T FoundationLumen Clarke M Willia…Slingshot Memphis IncThomas W Briggs Found…United Way of the Mid…Community Foundation …Charities Aid Foundat…Dick's Sporting Goods…
Dollar General Literacy FoundationTN20.8× affinity10 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Dollar General Literacy Foundation · International Paper Company Foundation · United Way Worldwide · The Kemmons Wilson Family Foundation · AT&T Foundation · Lumen Clarke M Williams Foundation · Slingshot Memphis Inc · Thomas W Briggs Foundation Inc · United Way of the Mid South · Community Foundation of Greater Memphis Inc · Charities Aid Foundation America · Dick's Sporting Goods 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 Champions for Literacy 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.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%1%3%6%10%your share of their income ↑0%23%45%68%90%share of the org’s income from government →median 8%
  • Care Elementary School Inc — 8% of income from government
  • Smart Reading — 3% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
19report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–90%
typical government reliance, FY20–25

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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Champions for Literacy?

Find your warmest path to Champions for Literacy 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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 56 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your 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. How we build these →

Generated from your IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions
grants reported with no recipient in the public record
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home
State money flows
the interactive map of money crossing state lines