· Private foundation
Gordon a Cain Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k17 grants · $77k
- $10k–50k29 grants · $581k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $330k
- $250k+3 grants · $1.8M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NATIONAL INFANTRY FOUNDATION | $1,100,000 |
| MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON | $450,000 |
| ALLEY THEATRE | $285,000 |
| ST MATTHEW'S PARISH SCHOOL | $180,000 |
| MEDIA RESEARCH CENTER INC | $100,000 |
| GOODMAN INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH | $50,000 |
| AMERICAN HERITAGE EDUCATION SOCIETY | $45,000 |
| HOUSTON MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCE | $35,000 |
| GRANDFATHER COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $35,000 |
| NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCATION OF AMERICA | $35,000 |
| PROJECT 8P | $35,000 |
| GOOD SAMARITAN FOUNDATION OF TEXAS INC | $30,000 |
| UCLA LAB SCHOOL | $25,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| STAR OF HOPE | $20,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $145k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
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.
46 repeat relationships — 40 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 11 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, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $87k 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
- NINATIONAL INFANTRY MUSEUM FOUNDATIONINC5× · 2020–2024 · $2.5M · revenue +50%
- TMTHE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON5× · 2020–2024 · $1.0M · revenue +51%
- ATALLEY THEATRE4× · 2020–2024 · $680k · revenue +118%
Funded once
- FCFIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHone grant, 2020 · $50k
- BTBATTLESHIP TEXAS FOUNDATIONone grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue -7%
- FOFRIENDS OF THE CHILDREN - HOUSTONgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue +66%
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 Houston Local Information Initiative, Inc. provides public service journalism that reflects the civic needs of the diverse communities comprising Greater Houston.
The Heritage Society (THS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1954 whose mission is to tell the stories of the diverse history of Houston and Texas through collections, exhibits, the arts, educational programs, film, video, and other…
Memorial hermann health system is a nonprofit, values-driven, community-owned health system dedicated to improving health. our vision is to create healthier communities, now and for generations to come. our values are community,…
Our mission is to be the leading advocate for our member physicians, their patients and our community, in promoting the highest standards of ethical medical practice, access to quality medical care, medical education, research, and…
The Health Museum is an innovative science center that provides an interactive and entertaining experience for all ages, promotes understanding and appreciation of the human body, mind, and spirit, and inspires a lifelong commitment to…
American Leadership Forum (ALF) brings together, in classes, leaders with diverse perspectives so they can build relationships, learn to dialogue and respectfully differ, and work together for the good of our community.
See Schedule OThe Women's Resource of Greater Houston helps women and girls make choices toward becoming independent, productive, and financially stable. We fulfill our mission by recruiting volunteer instructors to deliver our programs in…
Glasstire is a website about visual art in Texas. Our mission is to expand the conversation about visual art in Texas.
Rebuilding Together Houston is the only organization in Houston and Harris County providing free home repairs to hundreds of families each year. We employ licensed contractors to restore homes to safe, livable conditions, extending each…
Memorial hermann health system is a nonprofit, values-driven, community-owned health system dedicated to improving health. our vision is to create healthier communities, now and for generations to come. our values are community,…
The witte museum inspires people to shape the future of texas through transformative and relevant experiences in nature, science and culture.
The Progress Texas Institute provides research and strategic communications on issues with the ultimate goal of increasing civic engagement.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Texas Public Policy Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Harmon Family Foundation (Fka the Claude Harmon Foundation). 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 42 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 26% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
50 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. 50 of the 69 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 NATIONAL INFANTRY MUSEUM FOUNDATIONINC ↗
- Who funds THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds Houston Museum of Natural Science ↗
- Who funds ALLEY THEATRE ↗
- Who funds MEDIA RESEARCH CENTER ↗
- Who funds Houston Botanic Garden ↗
- Who funds Goodman Institute for Public Policy Research ↗
- Who funds Good Samaritan Foundation of Texas Inc ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds American Heritage Education Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds STAR OF HOPE MISSION ↗
- Who funds CITIZENS AGAINST GOVERNMENT WASTE ↗
- Who funds THE INDEPENDENT INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds CHILD ADVOCATES INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL CENTER FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds Bill of Rights Institute ↗
- Who funds TEXAS PUBLIC POLICY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL LEGAL AND POLICY CENTER ↗
- Who funds HOUSTON CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY CRAFT ↗
- Who funds HOLOCAUST MUSEUM HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds THE MENNINGER CLINIC ↗
- Who funds THE WOMEN'S HOME ↗
- Who funds Houston Area Women's Center ↗
- Who funds THE METHODIST HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds San Jacinto Museum and Battlefield Association ↗
- Who funds Grandfather Community Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds Texans for Lawsuit Reform ↗
- Who funds The Houston Food Bank ↗
- Who funds Crime Stoppers of Houston 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: Greater Houston Community Foundation · Albert & Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation · John P McGovern Foundation · The Brown Foundation Inc · MD Anderson Foundation · Vivian L Smith Foundation · The Elkins Foundation · The John M O'Quinn Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · Strake Foundation · Alvin & Lucy Owsley Foundation · Mechia 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 Gordon a Cain 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 Gordon a Cain Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Gordon a Cain 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.