· Private foundation
Goodlett 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 · $24k
- $10k–50k13 grants · $230k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $100k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL | $50,000 |
| MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF THE MID-SOUTH | $50,000 |
| WOODLAND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH | $25,000 |
| PORTER LEATH | $25,000 |
| MADONNA LEARNING CENTER | $25,000 |
| LE BONHEUR CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL | $25,000 |
| MID-SOUTH THERAPY DOGS | $20,000 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF GREATER MEMPHIS | $20,000 |
| CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF WEST TN | $20,000 |
| PEER POWER FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| MOST - MEMPHIS OPPORTUNITY SCHOLARSHIP TRUST | $15,000 |
| YOUTH VILLAGES | $10,000 |
| MEMPHIS INNER CITY RUGBY | $10,000 |
| MIFA - METROPOLITAN INTER-FAITH ASSOCIATION | $10,000 |
| LITERACY MID-SOUTH | $10,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $373k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, 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 +33% since the first grant, against +2% for the ones you funded once.
31 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2025, 12 since wound down; 2 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, 93% 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
- MFMAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF THE MID-SOUTH INC9× · 2017–2025 · $450k · revenue +26%
ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC9× · 2017–2025 · $400k · revenue +145%- CLCOMMUNITY LEGAL CENTER7× · 2017–2023 · $252k · revenue +51%
Funded once
- OPOVERTON PARK CONSERVANCYone grant, 2017 · $15k · revenue +2%
- MMMOST - MEMPHIS OPPURTUNITY SCHOLARSHIP TRUSTone grant, 2018 · $10k
- BFBOOKS FROM BIRTH INCone grant, 2017 · $10k
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.
Methodist le bonheur healthcare, in partnership with its medical staffs, will collaborate with patients and their families to be the leader in providing high quality, cost-effective patient-and family-centered care. services will be…
Methodist le bonheur healthcare, in partnership with its medical staffs, will collaborate with patients and their families to be the leader in providing high quality, cost-effective patient and family-centered care. services will be…
In response to the love of god, the methodist rehabilitation center, is dedicated to the restoration and enhancement of the lives of those we serve. we are committed to excellence and leadership in the delivery of comprehensive…
Mental health cooperative inc. (mhc) provides integrated health services that include behavioral health care, primary health care, addiction services, and community-based care management. mhc also provides emergency psychiatric services…
The mission is to create memorable learning experiences through the joy of play, in hands-on exhibits and programs. we accomplish this mission by reaching out to the mid-south school children, families, and the tourist visitor.
To be a successful physician led, professionally managed medical practice that benefits our patients and our community, while supporting the UT Health Science Center's mission through clinical excellence, financial responsibility and a…
Methodist Medical Center provides quality healthcare, in alignment with Covenant Health's mission to serve the community by improving the quality of life through better health regardless of a patient's ability to pay.
To empower individuals living with disabilities and challenges to gain independence
Ronald McDonald House Charities of Memphis, Inc. sees a world where every family has what they need to ensure the best health outcomes for their children. They provide essential services that remove barriers, strengthen families, and…
Memphis recovery centers, inc. (mrc) provides compassionate treatment services for youth and adults suffering from substance addiction and co-occurring disorders, utilizing professional methods to improve spiritual, physical, emotional,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of the Mid-South Inc and the most unlike its peers is National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 39 years old; the field is 61. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 14% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
33 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. 33 of the 45 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 MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF THE MID-SOUTH INC ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY LEGAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds PORTER-LEATH ↗
- Who funds MADONNA LEARNING CENTER INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds MID-SOUTH FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds MID SOUTH THERAPY DOGS INC ↗
- Who funds HARWOOD CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER MEMPHIS ↗
- Who funds Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association ↗
- Who funds MEMPHIS OPPORTUNITY SCHOLARSHIP TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds LITERACY MID-SOUTH INC ↗
- Who funds THE PEER POWER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MEMPHIS CHILD ADVOCACY CENTER ↗
- Who funds YOUTH VILLAGES INC ↗
- Who funds Memphis Inner City Rugby ↗
- Who funds BAPTIST MEMORIAL HEALTH CARE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF GREATER MEMPHIS ↗
- Who funds OVERTON PARK CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds CHURCH HEALTH CENTER OF MEMPHIS INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF GREATER MEMPHIS INC ↗
- Who funds BOOKS FROM BIRTH INC ↗
- Who funds YMCA OF MEMPHIS & THE MID-SOUTH ↗
- Who funds Habitat for Humanity ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Methodist Healthcare Foundation ↗
- Who funds DOROTHY DAY HOUSE OF HOSPITALITY ↗
- Who funds CARPENTER ART GARDEN ↗
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: Community Foundation of Greater Memphis Inc · Christian Community Foundation of Memphis · United Way of the Mid South · Thomas W Briggs Foundation Inc · The Kemmons Wilson Family Foundation · Jr Hyde III Family Foundation · Thomas Garrott Foundation · The Urban Child Institute · Plough Foundation · The Assisi Foundation of Memphis Inc · Belz Foundation · Jewish Foundation of Memphis
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 Goodlett 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.