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· Private foundation

Frank and Lillian Buckner Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$11k
Granted FY2024still arriving
5
Grants FY2024still arriving
1
States reached
$5k
Largest
01What it funds
0192% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Human Services$23kHealth$9kArts & Culture$6kFood & Nutrition$3kPhilanthropy$2kReligion$2kYouth Development$2kEducation$2kOther$0
02FY2024 · 5 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$2,150
Median grant
1
States reached
$12k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Reel Town High School$5,000
Misc Gifts to Needy$2,528
Individual grant recipient$2,150
Cadence Bank$1,000
Go Fund Me$500
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 (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 14%. 63% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 14%Southern Heritage Funeral Home: $2k → 7%Kit Goolsby: $5k → 13%Misc Gifts to Needy: $3k → 16%Carr Funeral Home: $2k → 17%Reel Town High School: $5k → 32%Mylon Hayes Family: $3k → 16%Purple Heart Foundation: $50 → 6%Alton Strickland: $2k → 13%Reisha Riggins: $2k → 16%Betsy Gay-Widow: $2k → 13%VARIOUS: $1k → 16%TERRY WALKER: $1k → 13%First Baptist Church Trussville: $1k → 16%JOETIFFANY LAYFIELD: $1k → 13%Cahaba Elementary School: $1k → 16%RONNY LONG: $1k → 13%VINCE PROSEN: $1k → 16%Various: $833 → 13%No Longer Ministry: $1k → 16%MARK GUNN: $800 → 13%Deerfoot Baptist: $750 → 16%Lindsey Kelley Funeral: $723 → 13%No Longer Ministry: $500 → 16%Various: $501 → 13%Go Fund Me: $500 → 16%Leikemia & Lymphoma Society: $500 → 13%Stevie Ray's Second Wind: $500 → 16%Springville Band Boosters: $500 → 13%CHRISTIE SPEIGNER: $300 → 16%Various: $45 → 13%The Troy Ellis Foundation: $300 → 16%Christian Memorial Funeral Home: $4k → 13%Troy Ellis Foundation: $260 → 16%ASHLEY VAUGHN: $200 → 16%JOEY AND KELLY DAILEY: $100 → 16%Marfan Foundation: $81 → 16%Ridouts Funeral Home: $3k → 16%St Vincents Foundation: $1k → 16%Cadence Bank: $1k → 16%St Vincents Foundation: $1k → 16%St Clair Backpack Buddies: $500 → 16%St Clair Backpack Buddies: $350 → 16%St Clair Backpack Buddies: $350 → 16%Wilbur's Plumbing: $2k → 16%Red Mountain Grace: $1k → 16%Red Mountain Grace: $400 → 16%Our Lady of Sorrows Church: $288 → 16%Boys & Girls Club of Central AL: $500 → 16%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.

17%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$9k · 6 repeat orgs$46k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +253% since the first grant, against +25% for those funded once.

6 repeat relationships: 0 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

6
29

Total granted

$9k
$34k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+253%
+25%

Still filing today

33%
10%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $11k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’24
HealthYouth DevelopmentEducationOther
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

  • V
    VARIOUS
    4× · 2017–2020 · $3k
  • SV
    St Vincents Foundation
    2× · 2017–2018 · $2k
  • NL
    No Longer Ministry
    2× · 2017–2018 · $2k

Funded once

  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    one grant, 2019 · $5k
  • CM
    Christian Memorial Funeral Home
    one grant, 2017 · $4k
  • MH
    Mylon Hayes Family
    one grant, 2019 · $3k
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 40 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
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

Individual grant recipient: $5,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientReel Town High School: $5,000 · OtherReel Town High SchoolChristian Memorial Funeral Home: $3,500 · OtherChristian Memorial Funeral HomeVARIOUS: $2,660 · OtherMisc Gifts to Needy: $2,528 · OtherMylon Hayes Family: $2,500 · OtherRidouts Funeral Home: $2,500 · OtherIndividual grant recipient: $2,474 · OtherIndividual grant recipient: $2,150 · OtherSt Vincents Foundation: $2,000 · OtherCarr Funeral Home: $2,000 · OtherSouthern Heritage Funeral Home: $1,830 · OtherIndividual grant recipient: $1,803 · Other+22 more: $15,517 · Other+22 moreREFUGE 1212 INC: $1,400 · HealthBLOOD CANCER UNITED INC: $500 · HealthTROY ELLIS FOUNDATION INC: $560 · Youth DevelopmentBOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF CENTRAL ALABAMA INC: $500 · Youth DevelopmentSpringville Band Boosters Inc: $500 · Education
Other$51,462Health$1,900Youth Development$1,060Education$500

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 budgetREFUGE 1212 INC: $1,400 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetBLOOD CANCER UNITED INC: $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetBOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF CENTRAL ALABAMA INC: $500 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 REFUGE 1212 INC ↗
  • Who funds TROY ELLIS FOUNDATION INC ↗
  • Who funds BLOOD CANCER UNITED INC ↗
  • Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF CENTRAL ALABAMA INC ↗
  • Who funds Springville Band Boosters Inc ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%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.

    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 40 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 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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