· Private foundation
Fw Bert and Mae Dean Wheeler 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k2 grants · $50k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $650k
- $250k+2 grants · $2.7M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MD ANDERSON CANCER CENTER RESEARCH | $2,400,000 |
| BLINN COLLEGE FOUNDATION | $300,000 |
| BRAZOS VALEY FOOD BANK | $200,000 |
| SOS MINISTRIES | $150,000 |
| AGGIELAND HUMANE SOCIETY | $100,000 |
| ST PAUL'S UNITED METHODIST CHURCH | $100,000 |
| SCOTTY'S HOUSE | $50,000 |
| THE BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF THE BRAZOS VALLEY | $50,000 |
| CSISD EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| EASTER SEALS OF GREATER HOUSTON | $25,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY21–21, $50k) land where the poverty rate runs at 22%, against an area that typically sits at 14%. 100% of those 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +48% since the first grant, against +47% for the ones you funded once.
18 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 9 since wound down; 1 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, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $25k 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
- MAMD ANDERSON CANCER CENTER RESEARCH8× · 2017–2024 · $7.0M
- BCBLINN COLLEGE FOUNDATION6× · 2019–2024 · $1.9M · revenue -73%
- UOUNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON COLLEGE OF NURSING2× · 2021–2022 · $1.3M
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $455k
- PFPTSD FOUNDATION OF AMERICAgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $100k · revenue +47%
- BVBRAZOS VALLEY CARES INCone grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue -28%
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.
We distribute food, clothing, and toiletry items to the poor and needy along the TX-Mexico Border as well as ministering to their spiritual needs through services, health programs, and other humanitarian efforts.
A state of texas licensed foster care and adoption agency that identifies and provides approved healing foster homes for children.
To support the educational programs of Brazosport ISD for both students and staff. The foundation provides funds that are not available through the normal operating budget of the school district.
Care for abandoned animals in vernon and wilbarger county, tx including spay, neuter, adoption and education.
The purpose of BUILD Command Team is to unify the student body at Texas A&M University through service projects.
Collection of food to provide to needy people in brazos, county, texas
To promote and diversify the economic base, attract high-wage jobs in target industries to Brazoria County and support and champion the interests of existing businesses.
To provide fire and medical emergency services for the city of garrison, tx and the surrounding districts.
To assist sexual assault and domestic violence victims. To operate a safe shelter and provide counseling services.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Easter Seals of Greater Houston Inc and the most unlike its peers is S O S Ministries Inc. 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 24 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 BLINN COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Aggieland Humane Society ↗
- Who funds S O S Ministries INC ↗
- Who funds PTSD FOUNDATION OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds BRAZOS VALLEY CARES INC ↗
- Who funds Bridge Ministries of Bryan Texas ↗
- Who funds EASTER SEALS OF GREATER HOUSTON INC ↗
- Who funds BISD EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
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: Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · 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 Fw Bert and Mae Dean Wheeler 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.
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 Fw Bert and Mae Dean Wheeler Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Fw Bert and Mae Dean Wheeler 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.