· Private foundation
Geraldine C and Emory M Ford Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k6 grants · $7k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $30k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $30,000 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| LONESTAR COWBOY POETRY GATHERING | $500 |
| WESTERN FOLKLIFE CENTER | $500 |
| KANSAS PUBLIC RADIO | $250 |
| Individual grant recipient | $200 |
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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 71% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +87% since the first grant, against -3% for the ones you funded once.
16 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $500 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
- RIRose-Hulman Institute of Technology4× · 2017–2020 · $78k · revenue +65%
POMONA COLLEGE4× · 2020–2023 · $20k · revenue +87%- UOUNIVERSITY OF NEVADA LAS VEGAS FOUNDATION3× · 2017–2019 · $15k · revenue +18%
Funded once
- ETELLEN THEATRE RESTORATION FUNDone grant, 2019 · $5k
- LLLA LUZone grant, 2018 · $5k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2024 · $3k
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.
As a diverse community of learners, we cultivate integrity, curiosity, connection and resilience.
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
Pitzer College produces engaged socially responsible citizens of the world through an academically rigorous, interdisciplinary liberal arts education emphasizing social justice, intercultural understanding and environmental sensitivity.…
We welcome, educate, and empower a diverse community of learners for lives of meaning, impact, and joy.
University of the sciences prepares students to become leaders, innovators, and skilled practitioners in the sciences, the health professions, and related disciplines. we deliver excellence in teaching, research, and service through a safe…
Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…
Bates is a college of the liberal arts and sciences, and is a coeducational, nonsectarian, residential college with special commitments to academic rigor, and to assuring in all of its efforts the dignity of each individual, and access to…
See detailed description of organization's primary mission provided on schedule o
Through innovative learning opportunities, individual student attention, and an unwavering commitment to inclusive educational access, simpson college cultivates a diverse community of learners to lead lives of meaning and purpose.
The mission of lowell observatory is to pursue the study of astronomy, especially the study of our solar system and its evolution; to conduct pure research in astronomical phenomena; and to maintain quality public education and outreach…
Kenyon college is a private liberal arts educational institution with approximately 1,800 students and 200 professors. the college has 18 departments and 13 interdisciplinary programs.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Western Folklife Center Inc and the most unlike its peers is Pomona College. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 34 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 Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology ↗
- Who funds POMONA COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA LAS VEGAS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds EASTERN SIERRA INTERPRETIVE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds WESTERN FOLKLIFE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN RIVERS INC ↗
- Who funds THOMAS AQUINAS COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds YELLOWSTONE FOREVER ↗
- Who funds LONE STAR COWBOY POETRY GATHERING ↗
- Who funds ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SONOMA VALLEY TEEN SERVICES ↗
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: 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 Geraldine C and Emory M Ford 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 Geraldine C and Emory M Ford Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Geraldine C and Emory M Ford 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.