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Fownes Foundation at a glanceAlso receives grants: funding profile →

· Public charity

Fownes Foundation

Dedicated to the restoration, preservation, and commemoration of nationally recognized, historically significant golf sites in the united states.

$2.0M
Granted FY2024still arriving
2
Grants FY2024still arriving
1
States reached
$2.0M
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its fieldRead
04Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Recreation & Sports$2.3MYouth Development$200kEducation$50kPublic Benefit$10k
02FY2024 · 2 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

  • $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
  • $250k+1 grant · $2.0M
$2,000,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$1.1M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
OAKMONT COUNTRY CLUB$2,000,000
THE FIRST TEE OF PITTSBURGH$50,000
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 (FY21–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 98% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%COBBS CREEK RESTORATION & COMMUNITY FOUNDATION: $50k → 7%THE FIRST TEE OF PITTSBURGH: $50k → 11%THE FOXBURG GOLF PRESEERVATION INC: $20k → 14%GOLF WRITERS ASSOCIAION OF AMERICA: $10k → 16%TROOPS FIRST FOUNDATION INCORPORATED: $10k → 11%ALLEGHENY COUNTRY CLUB: $25k → 11%OAKMONT COUNTRY CLUB: $2.0M → 11%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 field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
Crooked Stick Golf Club

Operation of a golf course

—
2
Bakersfield Country Club

Membership - country club.bakersfield country club is a private family club, providing social and recreational activities for the benefit of its members and their guests. the club is committed to maintain its reputation for excellence and…

—
3
Foxburg Country Club Inc

To provide a high quality country club which includes a premier USGA Member Golf Course and Club house with Restaurant Facilities

Recreation & Sports
4
Butte Creek Country Club

To embrace the rules of golf & the u.s. golf association handicap system; to foster interest and provide facilities primarily for the game of golf; to provide high quality facilities, programs, and service to our members.

—
5
Clarinda Country Club

Membership golf course

—
6
Wilmington Country Club

Each of the enumerated activities is substantially related and significantly contributes to the social interaction and camaraderie of the entire membership of the organization.

—
7
Congressional Country Club Inc

Congressional country club is a full amenity private club committed to providing its members with access to professional level championship quality golf courses, tennis courts, swimming pools and fitness facilities. the club also provides…

—
8
The Lakewood Country Club

Private country club

—
9
Bellerive Country Club

Bellerive is a social club that operates golf, swimming, racquets, bocce and clubhouse facilities exclusively for its members and guests.

—
10
Conway Farms Golf Club Inc
Recreation & Sports
11
Western Pennsylvania Golf Association

The western pennsylvania golf association's purpose is to promote and advance interest in the true spirit of the game of golf through western pennsylvania.

—
12
Mountain Ridge Country Club

To provide facilities to play golf and other recreational activities and to maintain a clubhouse with dining facilities for the benefit of its members and their guests.

—
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Oakmont Country Club; the most unlike its peers is Golf Writers Association of America. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
04the grantee network

9 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.

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

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
9/9
Grantees still filing
6/9
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

OAKMONT COUNTRY CLUB: $2,000,000 · OtherOAKMONT COUNTRY CLUBLONGUE VUE CLUB: $100,000 · Other+2 more: $60,000 · OtherCR JRS CHIP: $250,000 · EducationCR JRS CHIPBucknell University: $25,000 · EducationBucknell Uni…THE COBBS CREEK RESTORATION AND COMMUNITY FOUNDATION: $50,000 · Recreation & SportsThe Foxburg Golf Preservation Inc: $20,000 · Recreation & SportsTROOPS FIRST FOUNDATION INCORPORATED: $10,000 · Public Benefit
Other$2,160,000Education$275,000Recreation & Sports$70,000Public Benefit$10,000

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetOAKMONT COUNTRY CLUB: $2,000,000 over 1y, 20% of budgetCR JRS CHIP: $250,000 over 3y, 6.9% of budgetLONGUE VUE CLUB: $100,000 over 1y, 1.4% of budgetTHE COBBS CREEK RESTORATION AND COMMUNITY FOUNDATION: $50,000 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetALLEGHENY COUNTRY CLUB: $50,000 over 2y, 0.5% of budgetBucknell University: $25,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetThe Foxburg Golf Preservation Inc: $20,000 over 1y, 14% of budgetTROOPS FIRST FOUNDATION INCORPORATED: $10,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetGOLF WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA: $10,000 over 1y, 3.8% 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.

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 …
Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift FundMA3.8× 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 Fownes Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Fownes Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 20%1%5%11%20%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
    2get no government money at all
    2report 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.
    04Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Fownes Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Fownes 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 9 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 e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Fownes’ filings →

    More from the funding graph

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    The regranting layer
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