· Private foundation
Commonwealth Foundations
Its FY2024 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k46 grants · $138k
- $10k–50k19 grants · $390k
- $50k–250k11 grants · $910k
- $250k+7 grants · $6.9M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| VCU SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING FOUNDATION | $3,262,500 |
| VIRGINIA TECH FOUNDATION | $1,260,000 |
| MARY BALDWIN UNIVERSITY | $850,000 |
| ANNA JULIA COOPER EPISCOPAL SCHOOL | $575,000 |
| CAV FUTURES FOUNDATION | $328,000 |
| UP RVA | $312,300 |
| WASHINGTON & LEE UNIVERSITY | $278,572 |
| KENAN-FLAGLER BUSINESS SCHOOL FOUNDATION | $216,000 |
| SPORTS BACKERS | $130,000 |
| AMERICAN RED CROSS | $100,000 |
| VIRGINIA ATHLETICS FOUNDATION | $96,000 |
| ST MARY'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH | $67,500 |
| MASSEY CANCER CENTER | $50,900 |
| FOCUSED ULTRASOUND FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| HIGH STREET UNITED METHODIST CHURCH | $50,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $661k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 92% 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.
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 +45% since the first grant, against +14% for the ones you funded once.
97 repeat relationships — 70 still active in FY2024, 27 since wound down; 12 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $234k 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
- LGLEWIS GINTER BOTANICAL GARDEN INC5× · 2020–2024 · $6.0M · revenue +28%
- TFTHE FAISON CENTER INC3× · 2020–2022 · $6.0M · revenue +6%
- VCVIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING FOUNDATION3× · 2020–2024 · $5.5M · revenue +35% · 67% of their budget
Funded once
- T3THE 30 DAY FUND INCone grant, 2020 · $200k · revenue -100%
- PTPARENTING TRANSLATOR FOUNDATIONone grant, 2023 · $200k · revenue 0% · 61% of their budget
- WGWORLD GOLF FOUNDATION - THE FIRST TEEone grant, 2020 · $100k
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.
The university of virginia investment management company (uvimco) is organized to invest funds on behalf of the rector and visitors of the university of virginia (the university or uva) and university-associated organizations (uaos).
The foundation determines the patentability and obtains patents on virginia commonwealth university (vcu) inventions and markets and licenses such inventions to commerical entities. the foundation's activities promote research efforts at…
To provide administrative services to university of virginia (university) entities, university associated organizations, or other entities involved in activities which support the university. to engage in matters pertaining to real…
The university of virginia law school foundation's primary purpose is to receive, manage and expend funds for the benefit of the university of virginia school of law.
To provide investment and investment management and related services to the rector and the board of visitors of virginia commonwealth university (vcu), and/or to the private and independent foundations and other entities affiliated with…
To deliver important healthcare services with exceptional quality and patient-centered care.
To provide excellence in the delivery of healthcare.
The William & Mary Foundation advances the university's highest aspirations by securing private support, guiding a multi-asset investment portfolio, and offering strategic leadership. In this work, we propel the university toward national…
The mission of vt-arc is to extend the impact of the virginia tech research and innovation enterprise, delivering superior analytic and technology solutions to government and non-government customers.
Virginia wesleyan university is a fully accredited liberal arts, united-methodist related institution founded in 1961.
The uva licensing and ventures group is dedicated to growing and guiding university innovations while improving lives on grounds and around the world.
Chamberrva is the trusted voice for modern business in the richmond virginia region. we are change agents, rallying to do the hard things that will create a more connected, prosperous, health and equitable community.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Cav Futures Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Southampton County Historical Society. 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 38 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 5% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.9% 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.
107 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. 107 of the 145 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 VIRGINIA TECH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LEWIS GINTER BOTANICAL GARDEN INC ↗
- Who funds THE FAISON CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA COMMONWEALTH UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MARY BALDWIN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds RICHMOND FIRST TEE ↗
- Who funds ANNA JULIA COOPER SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THE KENAN-FLAGLER BUSINESS SCHOOL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UP RVA ↗
- Who funds Washington and Lee University ↗
- Who funds SHELTERING ARMS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CARITAS ↗
- Who funds CAV FUTURES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA STUDENT AID FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FOCUSED ULTRASOUND FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NEXTUP RVA ↗
- Who funds MEDICAL COLLEGE OF VA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ST ANNE'S-BELFIELD INC ↗
- Who funds The Virginia Home ↗
- Who funds OPERATION HEALING FORCES INC ↗
- Who funds JEFFERSON SCHOLARS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE 30 DAY FUND INC ↗
- Who funds PARENTING TRANSLATOR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds METROPOLITAN RICHMOND SPORTS BACKERS ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA INSTITUTE OF AUTISM INC ↗
- Who funds THE COLLEGIATE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SOUTHAMPTON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds PGA TOUR FIRST TEE FOUNDATION 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: The Community Foundation Inc · Herndon Foundation · The Mary Morton Parsons Foundation · Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation · Robins Foundation · Richard S Reynolds Foundation · Carmax Foundation · Tesco Foundation · The Pauley Family Foundation · Townebank Foundation · Pga Tour Charities Inc · Shelton H Short Jr Trust
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 Commonwealth Foundations 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.
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc — 7% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Commonwealth Foundations?
Find your warmest path to Commonwealth Foundations 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.