· Private foundation
Gerald and Paula McNichols Family 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
- Under $10k8 grants · $30k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $160k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $60k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SHENANDOAH UNIVERSITY | $60,000 |
| STAFFORD REGIONAL HANDBELL SOCIETY | $25,000 |
| STEP VA | $20,000 |
| BABY STEPS | $20,000 |
| ARCS MWC FOUNDATION FELLOWSHIP | $20,000 |
| NW WORKS MUSIC THERAPY FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| HYLTON PERFOMING ARTS FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| LIBERTY UKRAINE FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| SOUTH LOUDON YOUTH CHORALE | $10,000 |
| THE NEW YORK POPS KIDS | $10,000 |
| EMERALD COAST WILDLIFE FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| GLOBAL BRONZE FOUNDATION | $6,200 |
| SHENANDOAH VALLEY LATINO SCHOLARS | $6,000 |
| 2 FOR 2 FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| COMMUNITY MUSIC SCHOOL OF THE PIEDM | $4,000 |
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 (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 70% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
21 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2024, 15 since wound down; 13 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, 31% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $173k 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
- ASAFTER SCHOOL DISCOVERY INC2× · 2019–2023 · $40k · revenue +70%
- NWNW WORKS INC3× · 2022–2024 · $35k · revenue +1%
- TCTHE COMMUNITY MUSIC SCHOOL OF THE PIEDMONT INC8× · 2017–2024 · $22k · revenue +31%
Funded once
- JFJOHN F KENNEDY CENTERone grant, 2020 · $60k
- WEWINCHESTER EDUCATION FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue -77%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2018 · $20k
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.
The richmond symphony performs, teaches and champions music to inspire and unite our communities.
Wilmington children's chorus, inc. is a not-for-profit organization that exists to empower young people to change their world through music.
The Wilmington Symphony Orchestra (WSO) provides symphonic music at the highest degree of excellance through performance opportunities for regaional musicians and educational and community outreach programs for our community's youth.
To provide and promote the best in music education in the upper valley region of vt and nh.
The washington conservatory of music provides exceptional musical learning & listening experiences for students and the community. its vision is a community inspired and informed by the experience of music.
Believing that music has the power to inspire, the fredericksburg symphony will fulfill this mission by enriching the community with live music. the symphony brings performances, educational programs, and community engagement initiatives…
The mission of winchester community music school is to provide outstanding and diverse musical education and performance, accessible to all, in winchester, neighboring communities, and beyond.
The Potomac Valley Youth Orchestra strives to: Advance and inspire the development of young talented musicians of the Washington, D.C. region by providing intensive training and unparalleled performance opportunities. Actively engage young…
Fostering an appreciation for music, educating members and promoting interest in the study of music. this includes sponsoring musical performances, providing scholarships to students of music in charlottesville, va and the surrounding…
Washington metropolitan philharmonic association's (wmpa)purpose is to unite and uplift our community through the transformative power of classical music. our mission is to provide programs to: educate and engage students through our youth…
To continue the tradition of excellence in musical entertainment and education, while enriching the cultural experience of audiences of all ages throughout northeast tennessee and southwest virginia and points beyond.
The virginia discovery museum's mission is to operate a hands-on museum focusing on artistic, recreational, scientific, and educational programs and exhibits for the benefit of children who reside in the city of charlottesville and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Nw Works Inc and the most unlike its peers is Bluemont Concert Series Ltd. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 25 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 10% of your grantees by number, and just 8% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
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.
23 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. 23 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.
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 SHENANDOAH UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds WINCHESTER EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AFTER SCHOOL DISCOVERY INC ↗
- Who funds NW WORKS INC ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY MUSIC SCHOOL OF THE PIEDMONT INC ↗
- Who funds Baby Steps ↗
- Who funds The George Washington University ↗
- Who funds SENSORY THEATRE ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES INC STEP VA INC ↗
- Who funds GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LIBERTY UKRAINE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE GLASS-GLEN BURNIE MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds EMERALD COAST WILDLIFE REFUGE INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTH LOUDOUN YOUTH CHORALE INC ↗
- Who funds Raising Hands Tutoring Inc ↗
- Who funds FREMONT STREET NURSERY ↗
- Who funds LITERACY VOLUNTEERS - WINCHESTER AREA INC ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK POPS INC ↗
- Who funds JOY OF MUSIC YOUTH MUSIC SCHOOL CORPORATION ↗
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: The Bank of Clarke County Foundation · American Woodmark Foundation Inc · United Way of Northern Shenandoah Valley Inc · The Community Foundation of the Northern Shenandoah Valley · The Community Foundation of Harrisonburg & Rockingham County · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · Network for Good · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Gerald and Paula McNichols Family 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.