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Plinth

· Private foundation

Franci Neely 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.

$876k
Granted FY2023
35
Grants FY2023
4
States reached
$250k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your edgeRead
04Your fieldRead
01What you fund
0188% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2024.

Arts & Culture$1.1MEducation$113kHealth$71kScience & Tech$53kRecreation & Sports$45kInternational$43kSocial Science$35kEnvironment$15kOther$0
02FY2023 · 35 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

The 35 grants below total $760,500 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $875,500 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $115,000 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.

By grant size · FY2023

  • Under $10k22 grants · $66k
  • $10k–50k7 grants · $145k
  • $50k–250k5 grants · $300k
  • $250k+1 grant · $250k
$5,000
Median grant
4
States reached
$2.9M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
The Metropolitan Opera$250,000
Project Row Houses$100,000
Houston Grand Opera$50,000
Houston Cinema Arts Society$50,000
Nantucket Historical Association$50,000
The Museum of Fine Arts$50,000
Central Park Conservancy$25,000
White Heron Theatre Company$25,000
Foreign Policy Association$25,000
Rice University Baker Institute$25,000
Houston Cinema Arts Society$25,000
Museum of Fine Arts Houston$10,000
Nantucket Conservation Foundation Inc$10,000
The Museum of Fine Arts$6,500
Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University$5,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY18–21) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 6%. 100% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 6%SEE ATTACHED LIST: $810k → 7%William Jewell College: $100k → 8%SEE ATTACHED LIST: $277k → 7%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

66%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$1.0M · 13 repeat orgs$524k to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +65% since the first grant, against +21% for the ones you funded once.

13 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2023, 0 since wound down; 16 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

13
23

Total granted

$1.0M
$310k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+65%
+21%

Still filing today

69%
48%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 72% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $214k went to new ones.

50%100%’19’21’22’23
RenewedFirst-time

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

’19’21’22’23
Arts & CultureEducationEnvironmentHealthRecreation & SportsSocial ScienceOther

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

  • WH
    WHITE HERON THEATER COMPANY
    2× · 2019–2023 · $75k · revenue +11%
  • NH
    NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
    2× · 2022–2023 · $70k · revenue +88%
  • CP
    CENTRAL PARK CONSERVANCY INC
    3× · 2019–2023 · $45k · revenue +163%

Funded once

  • WJ
    William Jewell College
    one grant, 2021 · $100k · revenue -3%
  • MF
    Menil Foundation Inc
    one grant, 2019 · $95k · revenue +0%
  • NH
    Nantucket Historical Society
    one grant, 2019 · $26k

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

04Your field

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.

1
National Academy of Design

The mission of the national academy of design is to promote the fine arts in america through exhibition and education.

Education
2
Houston Botanic Garden

To enrich life through discovery, education, and the conservation of plants and the natural environment.

Environment
3
Natural History Institute

Natural History Institute is organized to provide leadership and resources for a revitalized practice of natural history that integrates art, science, and humanities to promote the health and well-being of humans and the rest of the…

Arts & Culture
4
Glasstire

Glasstire is a website about visual art in Texas. Our mission is to expand the conversation about visual art in Texas.

Arts & Culture
5
New Orleans Museum of Art

The mission of the new orleans museum of art is to inspire the love of art; to collect, preserve, exhibit and present excellence in the visual arts; to educate, challenge and engage a diverse public.

Arts & Culture
6
Performing Arts Houston

We connect audiences with exceptional artists through diverse performances and learning experiences. we ignite and cultivate passion for the performing arts to create community, inspire dialogue and enrich our world.

Arts & Culture
7
Museum of Arts and Design

To collect, display and interpret objects in craft art and design.

Arts & Culture
8
Witte Museum

The witte museum inspires people to shape the future of texas through transformative and relevant experiences in nature, science and culture.

Arts & Culture
9
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston

CAMH presents extraordinary and thought-provoking arts programming and exhibitions.

Arts & Culture
10
University of New Haven

The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…

Education
11
Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is a private, non-profit institution chartered by the State of New York Department of Education in 1929 to foster public awareness of modern and contemporary art. (Continued in Schedule O)

Arts & Culture
12
The Heritage Society

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…

—

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Houston Cinema Arts Society and the most unlike its peers is Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago. 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 41 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number23%3%<5yr13%7%5–10yr16%17%10–20yr15%21%20–35yr12%21%35–55yr21%31%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value23%0%<5yr13%1%5–10yr16%41%10–20yr15%6%20–35yr12%8%35–55yr21%44%55yr+

The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
0.0%0/33
the rest of the field
14%
150/1,058

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.

04the grantee network

33 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. 33 of the 53 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
4
Early backer (in before they grew)
33/33
Grantees still filing
23/33
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

HOUSTON CINEMA ARTS SOCIETY — $223,806 · Arts & CultureHOUSTON CINEMA ARTS SOCIETYProject Row Houses — $100,000 · Arts & CultureProject Row HousesMenil Foundation Inc — $95,000 · Arts & CultureMenil Foundation IncWHITE HERON THEATER COMPANY — $75,000 · Arts & CultureWHITE HERON THEATER COMPANYNANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION — $69,735 · Arts & CultureNANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONHouston Grand Opera Association Inc — $50,000 · Arts & CultureHouston Grand Opera Association Inc+13 more — $63,600 · Arts & Culture+13 moreThe Metropolitan Opera — $320,801 · OtherThe Metropolitan OperaThe Museum of Fine Arts — $87,500 · OtherThe Museum of Fine ArtsRice University - Baker Institute — $75,000 · OtherRice University - Baker InstituteNantucket Cottage Hospital — $65,000 · OtherNantucket Cottage HospitalNantucket Historical Society — $26,000 · Other+21 more — $86,320 · Other+21 moreWilliam Jewell College — $100,000 · EducationWESTMINSTER UNIVERSITY — $5,000 · Education+1 more — $2,500 · EducationCENTRAL PARK CONSERVANCY INC — $45,000 · Recreation & SportsFOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION INC — $25,000 · InternationalINNOVATIONS FOR POVERTY ACTION A NONPROFIT CORPORATION — $15,000 · Social ScienceNANTUCKET CONSERVATION FOUNDATION INC — $10,000 · EnvironmentNANTUCKET LAND & WATER COUNCIL INC — $5,000 · Environment
Arts & Culture$677,141Other$660,621Education$107,500Recreation & Sports$45,000International$25,000Social Science$15,000Environment$15,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetHOUSTON CINEMA ARTS SOCIETY — $223,806 over 3y, 17% of budgetProject Row Houses — $100,000 over 1y, 2.9% of budgetWilliam Jewell College — $100,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetMenil Foundation Inc — $95,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetWHITE HERON THEATER COMPANY — $75,000 over 2y, 5.3% of budgetNANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION — $69,735 over 2y, 0.7% of budgetHouston Grand Opera Association Inc — $50,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetCENTRAL PARK CONSERVANCY INC — $45,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetFOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION INC — $25,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetTHE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON — $16,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetINNOVATIONS FOR POVERTY ACTION A NONPROFIT CORPORATION — $15,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNANTUCKET FILM FOUNDATION INC — $10,000 over 2y, 0.6% of budgetCollaborative Arts Institute of Chicago — $10,000 over 2y, 5.4% of budgetNANTUCKET CONSERVATION FOUNDATION INC — $10,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetCommunity Foundation for Nantucket Inc — $10,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetHOUSTON CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY CRAFT — $8,500 over 2y, 0.5% of budgetWimbum Cultural and Development Association-USA Inc — $5,000 over 1y, 3.5% of budgetWESTMINSTER UNIVERSITY — $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNANTUCKET LAND & WATER COUNCIL INC — $5,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetINPRINT INC — $4,810 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetSEED GLOBAL HEALTH — $2,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT DOCUMENTARY INC — $2,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetHouston Museum of Natural Science — $2,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetPlanned Parenthood Gulf Coast Inc — $2,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTexas Defender Service — $2,500 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetALLEY THEATRE — $2,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetJames Dick Foundation for the Performing Arts — $2,400 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetHouston Arts Alliance — $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNANTUCKET TIPPING POINT INC — $1,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetOFICINA LEGAL DEL PUEBLO UNIDO INC — $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC — $100 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

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.

Greater Houston Commu…The Brown Foundation …Houston Endowment IncShell USA Company Fou…Oshman FoundationKinder FoundationMechia FoundationAlice Kleberg Reynold…Silicon Valley Commun…National Philanthropi…Jewish Communal FundVanguard Charitable E…
Greater Houston Community FoundationTX18.9× affinity8 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Greater Houston Community Foundation · The Brown Foundation Inc · Houston Endowment Inc · Shell USA Company Foundation · Oshman Foundation · Kinder Foundation · Mechia Foundation · Alice Kleberg Reynolds Meyer Foundat A0479800 · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Jewish Communal Fund · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program

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 Franci Neely 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.

2025
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%your share of their income ↑0%4%8%11%15%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–15%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25

    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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 53 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your 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. How we build these →

    Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2023, released 2023. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2024) is on record and reports $913k of grant expense with no grantee named in the published copy. A private foundation itemizes every grant it makes, so a return carrying none has filed its list as an attachment that the public copy does not include. The figures above are therefore from FY2023, the most recent year this funder’s grantee list reached the public record.

    Source object · view filing

    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home
    State money flows
    the interactive map of money crossing state lines