· Private foundation
Empty Cages Forever 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 FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k7 grants · $27k
- $10k–50k13 grants · $288k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Almost Home Wellness Center | $45,000 |
| The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust USA | $40,000 |
| No Dogs Left Behind Inc | $30,000 |
| Muva Rufferz Rescue Inc | $25,000 |
| Home for Good Dog Rescue Inc | $22,000 |
| Big Oaks Rescue Farm | $20,000 |
| Paws of War Inc | $20,000 |
| Friends of Screven County Animals | $18,000 |
| Helping Hands Humane Society Inc | $17,000 |
| Palmetto Animal Welfare Services Inc | $16,000 |
| Sweet Onion Animal Protection Society | $15,000 |
| No Trouble at All Animal Outreach | $10,000 |
| Keeper Of the Wild Wildlife Rescue | $10,000 |
| Peaceful Fields Sanctuary | $5,000 |
| Big Dog Haven Inc | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY21–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 60% of your 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 +11% since the first grant, against -22% for the ones you funded once.
29 repeat relationships — 18 still active in FY2025, 11 since wound down; 2 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, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $35k 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
- TDTHE DAVID SHELDRICK WILDLIFE TRUST USA INC5× · 2021–2025 · $220k · revenue +134%
- POPAWS OF WAR INC5× · 2021–2025 · $120k · revenue +73%
- HFHome For Good Dog Rescue Inc3× · 2023–2025 · $78k · revenue +2%
Funded once
- CRCANINE RESCUEone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue -22%
- MCMarion County Animal Shelterone grant, 2021 · $2k
- CBCotton Branch Farm Animal Sanctuaryone grant, 2023 · $1k
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.
Find homes for homeless/abandoned dogs. Provide full vet car and housing while awaiting adoption,
To help injured, abandoned and unwanted animals. We provide food, vet care that includes heartworm prevention and spay or neuter services, shelter and anything else needed.
To help rescue unwanted pets
Saving dogs
The rescue and rehabilitation of canines.
An animal rescue/adoption Agency. Rescued animals are from kill shelters or owner surrenders facing hardship then rehabbed/medical completed while in foster care then adopted into loving homes.
foster based dog rescue working with shelters to save dogs
Animal rescue
House unwanted abandoned domestic animal
Animal Welfare
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is No Dogs Left Behind Inc and the most unlike its peers is Four Paws International 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 12 years old; the field is 16. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 13% of your grantees by number, and just 11% 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.
21 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. 21 of the 34 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 DAVID SHELDRICK WILDLIFE TRUST USA INC ↗
- Who funds NO DOGS LEFT BEHIND INC ↗
- Who funds PAWS OF WAR INC ↗
- Who funds BIG OAKS RESCUE FARM ↗
- Who funds Almost Home Wellness Center ↗
- Who funds Home For Good Dog Rescue Inc ↗
- Who funds THE SATO PROJECT ↗
- Who funds SWEET ONION ANIMAL PROTECTION SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds FOUR PAWS INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF SCREVEN COUNTY ANIMALS ↗
- Who funds Peaceful Fields Sanctuary Corporation ↗
- Who funds Pets With Disabilities Inc ↗
- Who funds ALL BASSETS CHERISHED BASSET HOUND RESCUE INC ↗
- Who funds BIG DOG HAVEN INC ↗
- Who funds DOGS DESERVE BETTER INC ↗
- Who funds GUARDIANS OF RESCUE INC ↗
- Who funds BYRAM ANIMAL RESCUE KINDNESS SQUAD INC ↗
- Who funds CAT AROUND TOWN PROJECT ↗
- Who funds CANINE RESCUE ↗
- Who funds Releash Atlanta Inc ↗
- Who funds HASTYS HAVEN 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: Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · Network for Good · AbbVie Foundation · Verizon Foundation · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Empty Cages Forever 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.
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.