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· Public charity
DONALD DANFORTH PLANT SCIENCE CENTER
Improve the human condition through plant science/research: feed the hungry and improve human health, preserve and renew our environment and enhance our region's economy.
$8.7M
Granted FY2024
28
Grants
15
Communities
$882k
Largest
01What you fund
01
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 69% of DONALD DANFORTH PLANT SCIENCE CENTER’s grantee dollars go to organizations outside the IRS cause taxonomy (common for large international and research funders), so a chart would be mostly “unclassified” and misrepresent the portfolio.
02beneath the categories
Past the labels — and the year it shifted
Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.
…and in their own words, year by year
2018
btimolecularboyce thompsonplantsbiologyecology
2019
scientificbiology
2020
biology
2021
chicagooperatesgrainbiology
2022
louisleadershipbiostlbioscienceoperateschicagograin
2023
louisleadershipcollaborativebiostlbiosciencegrainoperates
2024
louisleadershipbiostlbiosciencecollaborativeoperatesgrain
Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.
03FY2024 · 28 grants
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k7 grants · $200k
- $50k–250k9 grants · $1.0M
- $250k+12 grants · $5.2M
$178,661
Median grant
15
States reached
$626M
Total assets
Largest grants
- UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS$881,742
- LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY$796,710
- UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS$477,329
- MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY$468,409
- UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND$388,146
- WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY$363,364
- UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA$353,564
- UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA$339,011
- ARIZONA BOARD OF REGENTS$312,137
- PURDUE UNIVERSITY$300,800
- CURATORS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI$265,431
- CHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY$254,985
- THE LAND INSTITUTE$223,299
- ST LOUIS UNIVERSITY$178,661
- UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII$147,480
02The need
04
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 14% — the area typically sits at 11%. 72% of your dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
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 line in 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, United Way ALICE — 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.
99%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$54M · 42 repeat orgs$320k to everyone else
42 repeat relationships — 28 still active in FY2024, 14 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Re-uppedFunded once
Organizations
42
3
Total granted
$54M
$320k
Still filing today
40%
0%
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.
RenewedFirst-time
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
EducationScience & TechAnimalsEnvironmentCommunity ImprovementYouth DevelopmentOther
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
STANFORD UNIVERSITY8× · 2017–2024 · $6.5M · revenue +32%- CICARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON7× · 2017–2023 · $2.5M · revenue +43%
- UOUNIVERSITY OF KANSAS CENTER FOR RESEARCH4× · 2021–2024 · $1.9M · revenue +22%
Funded once
- WSWEXFORD SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGYone grant, 2018 · $175k
- WUWASHINGTON UNIVERSITYone grant, 2020 · $106k
- ISIMPOSSIBLE SENSINGone grant, 2023 · $39k
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
Washington College
Washington college challenges and inspires emerging citizen leaders to discover lives of purpose and passion.
Education
2
Maryland Institute
Degree granting college-maryland institute college of art is a private college (see schedule o)
Education
3
Washington and Lee University
See schedule owashington and lee university provides a liberal arts education to approximately 1,800 undergraduate students & offers jd & llm studies to approximately 400 law students each year.
Education
4
William Penn University
William penn university provides the opportunity for an educational experience with a focus on leadership, technology, and the quaker principles of simplicity, peace-making, intergrity, community and equality.
Education
5
Philadelphia University
To improve lives and provide students with exceptional value in 21st century professional education.
Education
6
Westminster University
Offer undergraduate and graduate degrees in liberal arts and professional programs.
Education
7
New York University
Nyu is a private university with approximately 60,000 matriculating students in 20 schools and institutes.
Education
8
Kansas City University
Kcu is a community of professionals committed to excellence in the education of highly qualified students in osteopathic medicine, dental medicine and health professions.
Education
9
The Howard University
We educate students, develop professionals, conduct research, and serve patients.
Education
10
Lewis University
Lewis university, guided by its catholic and lasallian heritage, provides to a diverse student population post secondary education and training.
Education
11
University of Pittsburgh
To provide high quality educational services, research, and community service.
Education
12
Illinois Institute of Technology
To provide distinctive and relevant education in an environment of scientific, technological, and professional knowledge creation and innovation.
Education
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Cornell University and the most unlike its peers is Widecast Wider Caribbean Sea Turtle. 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 77 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
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 11% of the field you don’t fund.
orgs you fund
0.0%0/45
the rest of the field
11%
206,164/1,819,520
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.
05the grantee network
17 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.
0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
17/17
Grantees still filing
14/17
Grew since you first funded
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Other$37,767,898Education$11,009,598Science & Tech$4,582,021Environment$675,548Community Improvement$191,033Youth Development$127,188Animals$40,109
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 STANFORD UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS CENTER FOR RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF DELAWARE ↗
- Who funds ST LOUIS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds THE LAND INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds CORNELL UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds BIOSTL ↗
- Who funds TECHNOLOGY ENTREPRENEUR CENTER INC (TEC)T-REX ↗
- Who funds BOYCE THOMPSON INSTITUTE FOR PLANT RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF PENNSLYVANIA ↗
- Who funds JACKIE JOYNER-KERSEE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF THE HAMLINE UNIVERSITY OF MN ↗
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.
National Fish and Wildlife FoundationDC14.6× affinity5 shared granteesties to 8 of 8Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →
Open a dossier: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation · Foundation for Food and Agriculture · Cornell University · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 organisation DONALD DANFORTH PLANT SCIENCE CENTER 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
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–90%
typical government reliance, FY20–24
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. 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
Through Plinth
Your grantmaking, live and operational
This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: THE LAND INSTITUTE.
Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk
Financial management
low risk
~16 months of operating runway; revenue grew over 7 filed years.
Track record & reputation
low risk
7 years of Form 990 filings, still active; revenue up 2.1× since.
Legal standing
low risk
US 501(c)(3); EIN 480842156 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.
Governance
Live in Plinth
Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.
Compliance & sanctions
Live in Plinth
OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.
Program capacity
Live in Plinth
Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.
Live · Plinth’s real DD engine
Run the actual assessment on THE LAND INSTITUTE, cold from public data.
Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.
Post-award monitoring · continuous checks
- On trackFinancial stability— Roughly 16 months of cash on hand.
- On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2024; revenue grew over the period.
- On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 3% of their budget — diversified.
- Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.
What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.
Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing
Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro
How do I get to Donald Danforth Plant Science Center?
Find your warmest path to Donald Danforth Plant Science Center through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.
Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.
More from the funding graph
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars pass through an intermediary
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
Strange bedfellows
the named clusters of US funding
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