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· Private foundation

Flowers Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$28k
Granted FY2025still arriving
13
Grants FY2025still arriving
1
States reached
$7k
Largest
01What it funds
0184% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Religion$96kEducation$11kHuman Services$8kYouth Development$3kArts & Culture$2kPhilanthropy$1kPublic Benefit$1kHealth$500Other$0
02FY2025 · 13 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$1,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$714k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
CARES$6,800
LEE ACADEMY$5,225
CLARKSDALE CARE STATION$3,000
TUNICA UNITED METHODIST CHURCH$2,500
CLARKSDALE METHODIST CHURCH$2,500
SPRING INITIATIVE$2,000
Individual grant recipient$1,000
MISSIONARY BAPTIST$1,000
GRIOT ARTS INC$1,000
PDS$1,000
CHICKASAW COUNCIL$1,000
Individual grant recipient$500
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION$200
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 30%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 9%REIGN MINISTRIES: $1k → 11%GIDEONS INTERNATIONAL: $100 → 14%ST JUDE: $500 → 17%COCKRUM METHODIST CHURCH: $500 → 10%MS VALLEY STATE: $500 → 19%COMMERCE BLVD CHRISTIAN CENTER: $1k → 28%TUNICA VOICE: $5k → 29%CARES: $7k → 36%COMMERCE BLVD CHRISTIAN CENTER: $1k → 28%LEE ACADEMY: $5k → 36%TUNICA UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: $24k → 28%LEE ACADEMY: $5k → 36%TUNICA UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: $21k → 28%FLOWERS MANOR: $5k → 36%TUNICA UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: $15k → 28%CLARKSDALE CARE STATION: $3k → 36%TUNICA UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: $15k → 28%CLARKSDALE METHODIST CHURCH: $3k → 36%GREGORY FOUNDATION: $10k → 28%SPRING INITIATIVE: $2k → 36%TUNICA UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: $8k → 28%GRIOT ARTS INC: $1k → 36%TUNICA AG EXPO: $5k → 28%PURPOSELY MADE: $1k → 36%TUNICA UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: $3k → 28%MISSIONARY BAPTIST: $1k → 36%MACEDONIA MB CHURCH: $1k → 28%PDS: $1k → 36%ARCABUTLA ANDREWS LODGE: $500 → 28%CHICKASAW COUNCIL: $1k → 36%TUNICA PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH: $100 → 28%CLARKSDALE METHODIST CHURCH: $900 → 36%GRIOT ARTS INC: $500 → 36%GRIOT ARTS INC: $500 → 36%IMMACULATE CONCEPTION: $200 → 36%HAILEY RICH CEMETARY FUND: $1k → 36%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

68%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$103k · 5 repeat orgs$48k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +54% since the first grant, against +38% for those funded once.

5 repeat relationships: 4 still active in FY2025, 1 since wound down; 9 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

5
13

Total granted

$103k
$31k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+54%
+38%

Still filing today

20%
23%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 40% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $17k went to new ones.

50%100%’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’20’21’22’23’24’25
Youth DevelopmentPhilanthropyEducationArts & CultureOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • TU
    TUNICA UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
    6× · 2020–2025 · $86k
  • LA
    LEE ACADEMY
    2× · 2024–2025 · $10k
  • CM
    CLARKSDALE METHODIST CHURCH
    2× · 2024–2025 · $3k

Funded once

  • GF
    GREGORY FOUNDATION INCgraduated
    one grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue +48% · 50% of their budget
  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    one grant, 2022 · $5k
  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    one grant, 2023 · $5k
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field
04the grantee network

5 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 5 of the 27 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
5/5
Grantees still filing
4/5
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

TUNICA UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: $85,500 · OtherTUNICA UNITED METHODIST CHURCHLEE ACADEMY: $10,225 · OtherLEE ACADEMYCARES: $6,800 · OtherIndividual grant recipient: $5,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipient: $5,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipient: $5,000 · Other+16 more: $16,900 · Other+16 moreGREGORY FOUNDATION INC: $10,000 · PhilanthropyREIGN MINISTRIES: $1,200 · Youth DevelopmentYOUNG LIFE: $1,000 · Youth DevelopmentSPRING INITIATIVE INC: $2,000 · EducationGRIOT ARTS INC: $2,000 · Arts & Culture
Other$134,425Philanthropy$10,000Youth Development$2,200Education$2,000Arts & Culture$2,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetGREGORY FOUNDATION INC: $10,000 over 1y, 50% of budgetGRIOT ARTS INC: $2,000 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetREIGN MINISTRIES: $1,200 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetYOUNG LIFE: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

  • Who funds GREGORY FOUNDATION INC ↗
  • Who funds SPRING INITIATIVE INC ↗
  • Who funds GRIOT ARTS INC ↗
  • Who funds REIGN MINISTRIES ↗
  • Who funds YOUNG LIFE ↗

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.

Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift FundMA5.3× affinity4 shared granteesties to 0 of 0Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Flowers Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Flowers Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%3%13%28%50%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Flowers Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Flowers 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 27 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Flowers’ filings →

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