· Private foundation
Don a Sanders Family Foundation
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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k31 grants · $115k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $139k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON | $39,410 |
| HOUSTON POLICE FOUNDATION | $32,500 |
| SAM HOUSTON STATE UNIVERSITY | $21,800 |
| Individual grant recipient | $15,000 |
| HOUSTON TEXANS FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| HOUSTON PET SET | $10,000 |
| SUNSHINE KIDS FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| EAST TEXAS ANGEL NETWORK | $6,000 |
| HOUSTON HUMANE SOCIETY | $5,500 |
| HEART GIFT FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| THE MISSION OF YAHWAH | $5,000 |
| ADVANTAGE ADOPTIONS | $5,000 |
| SPORTS AUTHORITY FOUNDATI | $5,000 |
| JUSTICE FORWARD | $5,000 |
| THE LOUISIANA MUSEUM FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $86k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 61% 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.
59 repeat relationships — 26 still active in FY2024, 33 since wound down; 11 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, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $37k 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
- TKThe Kinkaid School Inc4× · 2017–2022 · $934k · revenue +87%
- RPRESCUED PETS MOVEMENT INC5× · 2019–2023 · $272k · revenue +15%
- HPHOUSTON PETSET5× · 2020–2024 · $137k · revenue +6%
Funded once
- KAK-9 ANGELS RESCUEgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $39k · revenue +32%
- SOSTAR OF HOPE MISSIONone grant, 2017 · $20k · revenue -60%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $20k
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.
Pippys Pals Rescue is dedicated to saving the lives of dogs facing euthanasia in Houston. Our mission is to provide a second chance to these beloved companions by rescuing them from shelters, providing them with necessary medical care, and…
Animal Rescue
The Houston Local Information Initiative, Inc. provides public service journalism that reflects the civic needs of the diverse communities comprising Greater Houston.
The mission of the Houston Museum of Natural Science shall be to preserve and advance the general knowledge of natural science; to enhance in individuals the knowledge of and delight in natural science and related subjects; and to maintain…
RED COLLAR RESCUE is an all-volunteer 501 (c) (3) animal welfare charity dedicated to rescuing and providing extensive medical care, foster care, training, rehabilitation, and adoptive placement to stray, abandoned, and abused dogs in…
Plant, protect and promote trees all over the greater Houston area.
The Houston Bar Foundation supports programs that help provide legal representation to the indigent, promote community understanding of our legal system, and foster the administration of justice.
Mission: Connect communities with animals, inspiring action to save wildlife. Vision: Be a leader in the global movement to save wildlife. (Continued on Schedule O) Houston Zoo, Inc. (HZI) strives to be a zoo that practices exemplary…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Greater Houston Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is The Farrah Fawcett Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 33 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 26% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 6% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
81 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. 81 of the 158 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 The Kinkaid School Inc ↗
- Who funds HOUSTON POLICE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RESCUED PETS MOVEMENT INC ↗
- Who funds Houston BARC Foundation ↗
- Who funds HOUSTON PETSET ↗
- Who funds NOLAN RYAN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HOUSTON TEXANS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS FOR LIFE ↗
- Who funds EAST TEXAS ANGEL NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds HEARTGIFT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds K-9 ANGELS RESCUE ↗
- Who funds HARMON FAMILY FOUNDATION (FKA THE CLAUDE HARMON FOUNDATION) ↗
- Who funds THE SUNSHINE KIDS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ASTROS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TODAYS HARBOR FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds Citizens For Animal Protection Inc ↗
- Who funds GREATER HOUSTON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds STAR OF HOPE MISSION ↗
- Who funds The Brookwood Community Inc ↗
- Who funds Houston Botanic Garden ↗
- Who funds Pathways for Little Feet ↗
- Who funds THE ROGER CLEMENS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Houston Pets Alive ↗
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: Greater Houston Community Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · The Brown Foundation Inc · Houston Endowment Inc · Houston Petset · Baker Hughes Foundation · Strake Foundation · Dan L Duncan Foundation · John P McGovern Foundation · The Methodist Hospital · Mechia Foundation · Houston Arts Alliance
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 Don a Sanders Family 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.
- Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston Inc — 2% 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 Don a Sanders Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Don a Sanders Family 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.