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· Private foundation

Dean 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.

$1.0M
Granted FY2024still arriving
1
Grants FY2024still arriving
1
States reached
$1.0M
Largest
01What you fund
0188% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY20172024.

Education$1.9MReligion$1.7MScience & Tech$500kHealth$100kCommunity Improvement$100kOther$0
02FY2024 · 1 grant

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

$1,000,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$28M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
DALLAS THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY$1,000,000
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:

Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%LITERACY THROUGH MULTISENSORY: $25k → 17%CRISWELL COLLEGE: $100k → 14%EAST TEXAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY: $500k → 16%HOWARD PAINE UNIVERSITY: $200k → 17%WYCLIFFE BIBLE TRANSLATORS: $100k → 13%LITERACY THROUGH MULTSENSORY: $25k → 17%DALLAS THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: $1.0M → 14%DALLAS THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: $300k → 14%DALLAS THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: $300k → 14%BONTON ENTERPRISES FUND: $100k → 14%INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH: $373k → 14%INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH: $127k → 14%THE HOCKADAY SCHOOL: $100k → 14%DALLAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY: $500k → 14%DALLAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY: $300k → 14%SCOTTISH RITE HOSPITAL: $100k → 14%DALLAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY: $200k → 14%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.

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.

71%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$3.1M · 3 repeat orgs$1.3M to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +31% since the first grant, against +25% for the ones you funded once.

3 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2024, 2 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

3
9

Total granted

$3.1M
$1.3M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+31%
+25%

Still filing today

100%
56%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

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

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

’17’18’20’21’22’23’24
EducationHealthScience & TechOther

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

  • DT
    Dallas Theological Seminary
    3× · 2020–2024 · $1.6M · revenue +39%
  • DB
    DALLAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY
    3× · 2020–2022 · $1.0M · revenue +31%
  • IF
    INSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH
    2× · 2022–2023 · $500k · revenue -25%

Funded once

  • ET
    EAST TEXAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY
    one grant, 2021 · $500k · revenue -9%
  • HOWARD PAYNE UNIVERSITY
    one grant, 2021 · $200k · revenue +25%
  • CC
    CRISWELL COLLEGE
    one grant, 2020 · $100k · revenue +23%

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
Dallas International University

As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.

Education
2
Hardin-Simmons University

The mission of hardin-simmons university is to be a community dedicated to providing excellence in education enlightened by christian faith and values.

Education
3
Erskine College and Theological Seminary

Erskine College exists to glorify God as a Christian academic community where students are equipped to flourish as whole persons for lives of service through the pursuit of undergraduate liberal arts and graduate theological education.

Education
4
Houghton University

Houghton university provides an academically challenging, christ-centered education in the liberal arts and sciences to students from diverse traditions and economic backgrounds and equips them to lead and labor as scholar-servants in a…

Education
5
Greenville College

Greenville college d/b/a greenville university empowers students for lives of character and service through a transforming christ-centered education in the liberal arts, sciences, and professional studies.

Education
6
Houston Christian University

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."

7
Trinity University

Trinity university is an independent co-educational university whose mission is excellence in the interrelated areas of teaching, research and services.

Education
8
Evangel University

Evangel is a comprehensive christian university that is committed to excellence in educating and equipping students to become spirit empowered servants of god who will impact the church and society globally.

Education
9
Union University

Union university provides christ-centered education that promotes excellence and character development in service to church and society.

Education
10
California Baptist University

A private institution of higher education, offering both undergraduate and graduate courses to students.

Education
11
Dordt University

As an institution of higher education committed to the reformed christian perspective, dordt university equips students, alumni, and the broader community to work effectively toward christ-centered renewal in all aspects of contemporary…

Education
12
North Greenville University

North greenville university exists to glorify god by cultivating graduates who are equipped to serve as transformational leaders for church and society.

Education

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is East Texas Baptist University and the most unlike its peers is Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Crippled Children. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

8 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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 8 of the 12 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)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
8/8
Grantees still filing
6/8
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Dallas Theological Seminary — $1,600,000 · EducationDallas Theological SeminaryDALLAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY — $1,000,000 · EducationDALLAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITYEAST TEXAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY — $500,000 · EducationEAST TEXAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITYHOWARD PAYNE UNIVERSITY — $200,000 · EducationHOWARD PAYNE UNIVERSITY+2 more — $200,000 · Education+2 moreINSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH — $500,000 · Science & TechINSTITUTE FOR…WYCLIFFE BIBLE TRANSLATORS INC — $100,000 · OtherBONTON ENTERPRISES FUND — $100,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipient — $25,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipient — $25,000 · OtherTEXAS SCOTTISH RITE HOSPITAL FOR CRIPPLED CHILDREN — $100,000 · Health
Education$3,500,000Science & Tech$500,000Other$250,000Health$100,000

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

25%50%75%100%$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetDallas Theological Seminary — $1,600,000 over 3y, 1.5% of budgetDALLAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY — $1,000,000 over 3y, 0.4% of budgetEAST TEXAS BAPTIST UNIVERSITY — $500,000 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetINSTITUTE FOR CREATION RESEARCH — $500,000 over 2y, 2.7% of budgetHOWARD PAYNE UNIVERSITY — $200,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetCRISWELL COLLEGE — $100,000 over 1y, 1.1% of budgetHOCKADAY SCHOOL — $100,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetTEXAS SCOTTISH RITE HOSPITAL FOR CRIPPLED CHILDREN — $100,000 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.

Natl Christian Charitable Fdn IncGA10.2× affinity4 shared granteesties to 2 of 2Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Dean 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.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%your share of their income ↑0%4%8%11%15%share of the org’s income from government
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    3report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–15%
    typical government reliance, FY2025

    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 Dean Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Dean 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.

    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 12 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-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2025) is on record but names no grant recipient in the published copy, so the figures above are from FY2024, the most recent year this funder’s grantee list reached the public record.

    Source object · view filing

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