· Community foundation
East Tennessee Foundation
In 2024, the foundation held numerous charitable funds and granted 16,140,007 for a wide variety of charitable purposes.
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.
The 298 grants below total $14,427,647 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $16,140,007 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $1,712,360 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k66 grants · $490k
- $10k–50k171 grants · $3.5M
- $50k–250k51 grants · $5.0M
- $250k+10 grants · $5.4M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NISWONGER FOUNDATION | $1,900,000 |
| UNITED WAY OF GREATER KNOXVILLE | $555,522 |
| THE UNIV OF TENNESSEE KNOXVILLE | $446,585 |
| KNOXVILLE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $439,237 |
| UNIVERSITY HEALTH SYSTEM INC | $437,000 |
| SUNSHINE SERVICES | $398,000 |
| MORGAN COUNTY TRUSTEE | $327,000 |
| SCHWAB CHARITABLE | $312,622 |
| RMHC OF KNOXVILLE TENNESSEE INC | $310,432 |
| VANGUARD CHARITABLE | $284,750 |
| KNOXVILLE HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | $243,394 |
| EMERALD YOUTH FOUNDATION | $228,000 |
| EAST TN HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC | $198,250 |
| Individual grant recipient | $195,400 |
| WOMEN'S FUND OF EAST TENNESSEE | $182,250 |
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, $8.3M) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 94% 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 +42% since the first grant, against +20% for the ones you funded once.
420 repeat relationships — 235 still active in FY2024, 185 since wound down; 55 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, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.5M 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
- UHUNIVERSITY HEALTH SYSTEM INC8× · 2017–2024 · $11M · revenue +79%
- BGBOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF THE TENNESSEE VALL8× · 2017–2024 · $6.1M · revenue +56%
- LPLAKESHORE PARK CONSERVANCY8× · 2017–2024 · $5.2M · revenue +87%
Funded once
- 4P4TH PURPOSE FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $7.3M · revenue -91% · 85% of their budget
- IEINNOVATIVE EDUCATION PARTNERSHIPgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $2.0M · revenue +130% · 66% of their budget
YEAR UP INCone grant, 2017 · $1.1M · revenue +1%
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 maintain high standards for nursing homes in the state of tennessee and to seek the solutions to problems common to members of the association.
The tennessee justice center (tjc) advocates on behalf of low-income tennesseans in areas of public policy having the greatest impact on their health and welfare.
The united way of south central tennessee's mission is to improve lives by advancing opportunities for education, health, and financial stability for all. its vision is to be the primary community solutions leader for human services.
Cumberland Medical Center provides quality healthcare, in alignment with Covenant Health's mission to serve the community by improving the quality of life through better health, regardless of the patient's ability to pay.
Nashville public radio's mission is to be the most trusted & independent nashville voice, connecting our communities through non-partisan journalism, compelling storytelling, civil conversation and music discovery.
Roane County Medical Center provides quality healthcare, in alignment with Covenant Health's mission to serve the community by improving the quality of life through better health, regardless of a patient's ability to pay.
To provide services for senior citizens in knox county
Tennessee children's home, inc. is a not-for-profit organization that provides a home for neglected and pre-delinquent children who have an unstable family situation and who are beginning to develop problems which cannot be solved in their…
Plan and develop resource conservation and development programs
To advocate for people who are homless or near homeless, strategically planning for housing and services in the community, maximizing resources and collaboarating with community partners to implement housing and services within the…
The academy serves as the local medica society for physicians of knox county and surrounding counties in east tennessee. its purpose is to afford a medium for free discussion and exchange of ideas among physicians.
To combat severe physical and sexual abuse and resulting trauma by coordinating and providing services in a child friendly, safe and nurturing environment.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of East Tennessee Inc and the most unlike its peers is Historic Middlebrook Preservation T. 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 32 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% 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.
558 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. 558 of the 782 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 KNOXVILLE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY HEALTH SYSTEM INC ↗
- Who funds 4TH PURPOSE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF THE TENNESSEE VALL ↗
- Who funds LAKESHORE PARK CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds MARYVILLE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY EAST TENNESSEE INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF GREAT SMOKY MOUNTAINS NATIONAL PARK ↗
- Who funds NISWONGER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds VANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds EMERALD YOUTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF GREATER KNOXVILLEINC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG LIFE ↗
- Who funds THE CLAYTON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds INNOVATIVE EDUCATION PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ↗
- Who funds SUNSHINE SERVICES ↗
- Who funds KNOXVILLE SYMPHONY SOCIETY INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds Boys and Girls Club of Greeneville & Greene County ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR NORTHEAST FLORIDA INC ↗
- Who funds EAST TENNESSEE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds Ronald McDonald House Charities of Knoxville TN Inc ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S FUND OF EAST TENNESSEE ↗
- Who funds MOUNTAIN TOUGH RECOVERY TEAM ↗
- Who funds YEAR UP INC ↗
- Who funds KNOXVILLE HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INC ↗
- Who funds THE GEORGE W BUSH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds East Tennessee Historical Society Inc ↗
- Who funds Greene County United Way Inc ↗
- Who funds KNOX EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF TRI-CITIES TN/VA INC ↗
- Who funds BLACKBERRY FARM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE GREAT SCHOOLS PARTNERSHIP CHARITABLE TRUST ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF THE TENNESSEE VALLEY 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: United Way of Greater Knoxvilleinc · Haslam Family Foundation Inc · Trinity Health Foundation of East Tennessee · Stowers Machinery Foundation Inc · Bill and Crissy Haslam Foundation · Thompson Charitable Foundation · Lawson Family Foundation · The Clayton Homes Foundation · Variety of Eastern Tennessee · Akima Club Inc · The Boyd Foundation · Y12 Fcu Gives Foundation Inc
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 East Tennessee 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.
- Root Ns Inc — 26% of income from government
- Peabody Essex Museum Inc — 3% of income from government
- United Way of Northeast Florida Inc — 2% of income from government
- Year Up Inc — 0% 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.