· Private foundation
Donald M James Family 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k24 grants · $63k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $152k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $305k
- $250k+2 grants · $1.3M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| JGJ Gene Research | $881,000 |
| Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham | $446,000 |
| Mountain Brook Schools Foundation | $105,000 |
| Independent Presbyterian Church | $100,100 |
| Rand Corp | $100,000 |
| United Way of Central Alabama | $40,000 |
| Birmingham Museum of Art | $25,300 |
| University of Virginia | $25,000 |
| United Way of Escambia County | $20,000 |
| Birmingham Zoo | $12,176 |
| Kirkwood by the River | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary | $10,000 |
| University of Alabama | $9,000 |
| Woodlawn United | $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 (FY18–25, $24k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 86% 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 +34% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
49 repeat relationships — 35 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 52% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $881k 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
The Rand Corporation9× · 2017–2025 · $520k · revenue +34%
UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL ALABAMA INC9× · 2017–2025 · $275k · revenue +74%- UWUNITED WAY OF WEST FLORIDA INC8× · 2018–2025 · $195k · revenue +12%
Funded once
- CTCRIMSON TIDE FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $200k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2021 · $89k
- IPINDEPRENDENT PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHone grant, 2018 · $27k
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.
To support the university of alabama at birmingham in its scientific and educational mission, including managing and disbursing funds, acquiring real property, and providing operational flexibility.
To promote the preservation and continued development of commercial banking in alabama.
To work in partnership with families and organizations to ensure that all alabama children (birth to five) get everything they need to develop to their fullest potential.
The university foundation is organized to assist and aid the board of trustees of the university of alabama in fulfilling its educational, research, and public service programs and activities.
To build relationships with alumni and friends in order to secure private funds and other resources for the benefit of the university of southern mississippi (usm). the foundation receives, invests and distributes private gifts in support…
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
Birmingham corps' mission is to drive fair workforce opportunities and accelerate social change by recruiting, training, and retaining people in birmingham.
The mission of ACLCE is to prepare youth to become active, engaged, and informed participants in a democratic society.
The alabama alliance netowrk works to strengthen and enhance alabama's civic society through research, education, and grantmaking
To promote the value of using a realtor and to enhance our members' opportunities to serve customers in a professional, ethical and profitable manner within an environment that fosters cooperation among the membership.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The alabama best practices center helps teachers and administrators develop the competence, commitment and courage to do whatever it takes to improve student learning.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Leadership Birmingham Inc and the most unlike its peers is Jgj Gene Research Inc. 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 34 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 6% of your grantees by number, and just 35% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
34 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. 34 of the 65 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 JGJ GENE RESEARCH INC ↗
- Who funds The Rand Corporation ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL ALABAMA INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF WEST FLORIDA INC ↗
- Who funds WOODLAWN UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds Birmingham Zoo Inc ↗
- Who funds The Children's Hospital of Alabama ↗
- Who funds STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM ↗
- Who funds MCWANE SCIENCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA LAW SCHOOL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PRESBYTERIAN HOME FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds LEADERSHIP ALABAMA INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF COMBATANTS FOR PEACE INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds THE A EDUCATION PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds FREEDOM RAIN INC ↗
- Who funds JUNIOR LEAGUE OF BIRMINGHAM INC ↗
- Who funds BUILDING PEACE INC ↗
- Who funds ALABAMA POSSIBLE ↗
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 Daniel Foundation of Alabama · Mike and Gillian Goodrich Foundation · Protective Life Foundation · The Hackney Foundation · The Maynard Nexsen Foundation · Susan Mott Webb Charitable Trust · Hill Crest Foundation Inc · Altecstyslinger Foundation · The Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham · Robert R Meyer Foundation · The Hugh Kaul Foundation · Dunn-French 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 Donald M James 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.
- United Way of West Florida Inc — 3% 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.