· Public charity
Fruitful Commons
Every neighborhood has vibrant spaces that reconnect people to growing food, nature and each other.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2022–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Alamo Community Garden | $5,000 |
| Green Gate Neighborhood Development | $5,000 |
| Festival Beach Food Forest | $5,000 |
| Festival Beach Community Gardens | $5,000 |
| Red Salmon Arts | $5,000 |
| El Buen Samaritano El Buen | $5,000 |
| Kalpulli Texas Quetzalcoatl | $5,000 |
| Rebuilding Broken Communities | $5,000 |
| Ecology Action of Texas | $3,500 |
| The Salvation Army Austin Area Comm | $3,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY22–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of your 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.
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.
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.
7 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 9 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
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, 11% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $42k 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
- PTPTA TEXAS CONGRESS2× · 2022–2023 · $10k · revenue +37%
- PFPARTNERS FOR EDUCATION AGRICULTURE AND SUSTAINABILITY2× · 2022–2023 · $10k · revenue +40%
- EBEl Buen Samaritano Episcopal Mission2× · 2022–2023 · $10k · revenue +288%
Funded once
- SSerafinaone grant, 2023 · $14k
- PTPTA TEXAS CONGRESSone grant, 2022 · $5k
- BGBECKER GREEN CLASSROOMone grant, 2022 · $5k
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.
Farm&City is an independent 501c3 think & do tank dedicated to high quality urban & rural human habitat in Texas in perpetuity. We improve public policies to improve millions of Texans lives in ways that preserve and enhance Texas land,…
Improving public and park land communities using educational and vocational training for underserved youth.
Every neighborhood has vibrant spaces that reconnect people to growing food, nature and each other.
Stewardship Partners helps private landowners restore and preserve the natural landscapes of WA State. We collaborate with diverse interest groups to build bridges and find solutions that achieve mutual goals of environmental protection,…
Empowering Texans to fight pollution through sustained grassroots organizing campaigns that shift corporate and governmental policy.
Our mission is to engage people and communities through face-to-face public education, grassroots organizing and action-oriented research for a cleaner and healthier Texas.
Barton Springs Conservancy honors, preserves, and enhances the experience of Barton Springs for everyone through education and park improvements.
Evolve Austin advocates for and champions the Imagine Austin comprehensive plan, crafted by the people of Austin to create a more affordable, mobile, and sustainable city.
Guadalupe River Park Conservancy provides community leadership for the development and active use of Guadalupe River Park & Garden through education, advocacy and stewardship.
Farmshare Austin's mission is to grow a healthy, just and equitable local food system by increasing community food access and cultivating new farmers.
Good Work Austin's mission is to foster healthy careers in the local food and beverage industry through professional development and advocacy for more equitable practices.
The Big Thicket Biosphere Reserve's mission is community-based conservation to reconnect people with the natural and cultural environment while promoting sustainable economic growth in Southeast Texas.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Sustainable Food Center and the most unlike its peers is Pta Texas Congress. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
8 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. 8 of the 21 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
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 DOWNTOWN AUSTIN PARKS LLC ↗
- Who funds PTA TEXAS CONGRESS ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS FOR EDUCATION AGRICULTURE AND SUSTAINABILITY ↗
- Who funds El Buen Samaritano Episcopal Mission ↗
- Who funds Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems Inc ↗
- Who funds SUSTAINABLE FOOD CENTER ↗
- Who funds RED SALMON ARTS ↗
- Who funds Ecology Action of Texas Inc ↗
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: Austin Community Foundation Inc · Better Business Bureau · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Fruitful Commons 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.
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 Fruitful Commons?
Find your warmest path to Fruitful Commons 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.