· Private foundation
Scurlock Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
59% of Scurlock Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to National Philanthropic Trust, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 7 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2022, the last year Scurlock Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 80 organizations, $2M. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
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.
By grant size · FY2022
- Under $10k52 grants · $204k
- $10k–50k46 grants · $841k
- $50k–250k11 grants · $953k
- $250k+1 grant · $265k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Salvation Army | $265,000 |
| The University of Texas Foundation Inc | $165,100 |
| Yellowstone Academy - Fdn for Tomorrow | $118,334 |
| Teach for America | $111,250 |
| Agape Development Ministries | $107,000 |
| Project Row Houses | $100,000 |
| Houston Methodist | $84,000 |
| Hermann Park Conservancy | $57,000 |
| Lawndale Art and Performance Center | $55,000 |
| Childrens Museum Inc | $55,000 |
| Arrow Child & Family MInistries | $50,000 |
| River Oaks Baptist School | $50,000 |
| Serenity Retreat for Healing | $45,000 |
| Focus on the Family | $45,000 |
| The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center | $40,500 |
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 (FY17–23, $336k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 68% of Scurlock Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +38% since the first grant, against +32% for the ones you funded once.
109 repeat relationships — 74 still active in FY2022, 35 since wound down; 45 grantees were first funded in FY2022 (too recent to call). Read against FY2022, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $50k 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 UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS FOUNDATION INC8× · 2017–2024 · $2.7M · revenue +213%- TMTHE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON6× · 2017–2023 · $322k · revenue +96%
- ADAgape Development Ministries6× · 2017–2022 · $303k · revenue +107%
Funded once
Southern Methodist Universitygraduatedone grant, 2020 · $50k · revenue +26%- ADAnglican Diocese of the Western GCone grant, 2021 · $40k
- APAmazing PlaceSeniors Placeone grant, 2021 · $34k
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.
Plant, protect and promote trees all over the greater Houston area.
As the Houston affiliate of the National Christian Foundation (NCF), our mission is to serve and encourage givers to grow as faithful stewards who give wisely to further the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The HISD Foundation is dedicated to mobilizing the local community to support innovative priorities in HISD to improve outcomes for all students in the district. Our mission is to fund projects and programs of merit that fall outside of…
Our mission is to be the leading advocate for our member physicians, their patients and our community, in promoting the highest standards of ethical medical practice, access to quality medical care, medical education, research, and…
Rebuilding Together Houston is the only organization in Houston and Harris County providing free home repairs to hundreds of families each year. We employ licensed contractors to restore homes to safe, livable conditions, extending each…
The Houston Local Information Initiative, Inc. provides public service journalism that reflects the civic needs of the diverse communities comprising Greater Houston.
American Leadership Forum (ALF) brings together, in classes, leaders with diverse perspectives so they can build relationships, learn to dialogue and respectfully differ, and work together for the good of our community.
To recognize the accomplishments and contributions of our outstanding Texas business leaders and to perpetuate and inspire the values of entrepreneurial spirit, personal integrity, and community leadership in all generations of Texans.
The Heritage Society (THS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1954 whose mission is to tell the stories of the diverse history of Houston and Texas through collections, exhibits, the arts, educational programs, film, video, and other…
The Health Museum is an innovative science center that provides an interactive and entertaining experience for all ages, promotes understanding and appreciation of the human body, mind, and spirit, and inspires a lifelong commitment to…
See Schedule OThe Women's Resource of Greater Houston helps women and girls make choices toward becoming independent, productive, and financially stable. We fulfill our mission by recruiting volunteer instructors to deliver our programs in…
Family, School, and Church united in the education and support of each child - this is the founding premise upon which Presbyterian School nurtures and challenges its students. The school provides an educational program of the highest…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Houston Ballet Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Project Savvy. 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 33 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 27% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
134 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 134 of the 220 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 NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ↗
- Who funds NATL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FDN INC ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER HOUSTON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE METHODIST HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds The Brookwood Community Inc ↗
- Who funds THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds Agape Development Ministries ↗
- Who funds Texas Children's Hospital Foundation ↗
- Who funds Camp For All Foundation ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds St John's School ↗
- Who funds Teach for America Inc ↗
- Who funds KIDS' MEALS INC ↗
- Who funds A D Players ↗
- Who funds Hermann Park Conservancy ↗
- Who funds YELLOWSTONE ACADEMY INC DBA YELLOWSTONE SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds Christian Community Service Center Inc ↗
- Who funds Houston Zoo Inc ↗
- Who funds Project Row Houses ↗
- Who funds THE FORGE FOR FAMILIES ↗
- Who funds Texas Cultural Trust Council ↗
- Who funds Lawndale Art & Performance Center ↗
- Who funds PRISON ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds FOSTERING FAMILY ↗
- Who funds William Marsh Rice University ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAN'S PURSE ↗
- Who funds YOUNG LIFE ↗
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: Albert & Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation · Greater Houston Community Foundation · Strake Foundation · The Elkins Foundation · The Brown Foundation Inc · Houston Endowment Inc · Vivian L Smith Foundation · MD Anderson Foundation · John P McGovern Foundation · The William Stamps Farish Fund · Sterling-Turner Foundation · Shell USA Company 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 Scurlock 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.
- Williams 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Scurlock Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Scurlock Foundation 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.