· Private foundation
Elmer & Gladys Ferguson Charitable Trust
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 $10k39 grants · $120k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $30k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE MAGEE FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| ARKANSAS ZOOLOGICAL FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| OXFORD UNIVERSITY UMC | $9,810 |
| YOUTH PROGRAMS INC | $8,400 |
| NORTHMINISTER BAPTIST CHURCH | $7,000 |
| FRIENDS OF CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL | $5,000 |
| NEW LIFE OF JACKSON | $5,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| AVE MARIA HOME | $5,000 |
| CHRISTIAN BROTHERS HIGH SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| JACKSON FRIENDS OF THE ANIMAL SHELT | $5,000 |
| CARING AND SHARING PANTRY | $4,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MS FOUNDATION | $4,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MS FOUNDATION | $4,000 |
| ST MICHAEL CATHOLIC CHURCH | $3,500 |
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 (FY17–25, $44k) land where the poverty rate runs at 19%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 80% 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.
73 repeat relationships — 35 still active in FY2025, 38 since wound down; 3 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, 82% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $27k 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
- UOUNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI FOUNDATION7× · 2019–2025 · $106k · revenue +68%
- YLYOUNG LIFE6× · 2019–2025 · $28k · revenue +38%
- SCSTEWPOT COMMUNITY SERVICES INC6× · 2018–2025 · $18k · revenue +103%
Funded once
- WMWILLIAM MAGEE CENTER FOR WELLNESS Eone grant, 2021 · $20k
- WMWilliam Magee Ctr for Wellness Educationone grant, 2017 · $17k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS FAYETTEVILLEone grant, 2017 · $10k
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.
True to our christian heritage, we prepare students from diverse religious, cultural, educational and economic backgrounds to live life fully.
Support the research activities of the university of mississippi medical center
Ronald McDonald House Charities of Memphis, Inc. sees a world where every family has what they need to ensure the best health outcomes for their children. They provide essential services that remove barriers, strengthen families, and…
Mississippi college is a private, co-educational, comprehensive university of liberal arts and sciences and professional studies dedicated to the pursuit of academic excellence. founded in 1826, mississippi college is the oldest…
Union university provides christ-centered education that promotes excellence and character development in service to church and society.
The mission of Children's of Alabama is to provide the finest pediatric health services to all children in an environment that fosters excellence in research and medical education. Children's will be an advocate for all children and work…
To prepare young ladies and gentlemen for college success within a highly-structured, nurturing, christian environment.
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."
To encourage and demonstrate grace in the body of christ across racial lines, so that communities throughout mississippi can see practical evidence of the gospel message.
Harding academy of memphis, inc. is a private school providing education from pre kindergarten through grade twelve.
The mission of the humane society is to save and enhance the lives of pets through cooperative and innovative approaches to adoption, spay/neuter, sheltering and community engagement.
Methodist children's home equips children, youth, and families to flourish by offering hope through christian-centered relationships, services, and support.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is University of Arkansas Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Urban Bicycle Food Ministry. 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 45 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) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 4% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% 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.
60 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. 60 of the 161 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 UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds YOUNG LIFE ↗
- Who funds OPERATION SHOESTRING INC ↗
- Who funds STEWPOT COMMUNITY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds YOUTH PROGRAMS INC ↗
- Who funds PATILLO CENTER-SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds DANA'S HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds EPISCOPAL COLLEGIATE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds MEMPHIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds ARKANSAS ZOOLOGICAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds The Mustard Seed Inc ↗
- Who funds DOROTHY DAY HOUSE OF HOSPITALITY ↗
- Who funds SUNNYBROOK CHILDREN'S HOME INC ↗
- Who funds CHESHIRE ABBEY ↗
- Who funds MISSISSIPPI SPAY AND NEUTER (SPAN) ↗
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: Community Foundation for Mississippi · Ergon Foundation Inc · Community Foundation of Greater Memphis Inc · Christian Community Foundation of Memphis · Van Devender Family Foundation William Van Devender Trustee · Arkansas Community Foundation Inc · The Kemmons Wilson Family Foundation · Jr Hyde III Family Foundation · Howard & Mary Eliza McMillan Foundation · Selby and Richard McRae Foundation · The Scott Foundation · The Pruet 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 Elmer & Gladys Ferguson Charitable Trust 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.
- Rollins College — 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.
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How do I get to Elmer & Gladys Ferguson Charitable Trust?
Find your warmest path to Elmer & Gladys Ferguson Charitable Trust 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.