How much does Helen Russo Foundation give?

Helen Russo Foundation reported 7 grants totaling $3,915 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 8 and 16 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Helen Russo Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Religion (30%), Health (19%), Arts & Culture (18%).

Who are Helen Russo Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Green Valley Concert Band Inc ($5k), The Shriners' Hospital for Children ($2k), Green Valley Baptist Church Inc ($2k).

Does Helen Russo Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 13% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Helen Russo Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Helen Russo Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Community Foundation for Southern Arizona, Arizona Community Foundation, Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program.

Where is Helen Russo Foundation based?

Helen Russo Foundation is based in AZ.

Helen Russo Foundation

Helen Russo Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Helen Russo 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.

$4k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$1k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Religion$9kHealth$6kArts & Culture$6kAnimals$3kHuman Services$2kInternational$1kFood & Nutrition$1kPublic Safety & Disaster$975Other$0

02FY2025 · 7 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$400

Median grant

States reached

$97k

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
GREEN VALLEY BAPTIST CHURCH	$1,215
GREEN VALLEY CONCERT BAND	$1,000
REID PARK ZOO	$600
ST JUDE HOSPITAL	$400
GUIDE DOGS FOR THE BLIND	$400
AMERICAN LEAGUE OF GREEN VALLEY	$225
ROGER BACON HIGH SCHOOL	$75

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY19–22, $775) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 3% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

87%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$26k · 16 repeat orgs$4k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +30% since the first grant, against +24% for those 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

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$26k

$3k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+30%

+24%

Still filing today

50%

37%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $400 went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

AnimalsHealthHuman ServicesInternationalFood & NutritionEducationOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

FI
FRIENDS IN DEED INC
5× · 2018–2024 · $2k · revenue +30%
TA
The Animal League of Green Valley
7× · 2018–2025 · $2k · revenue +34%
RP
REID PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY
3× · 2023–2025 · $2k · revenue +11%

Funded once

SA
SOUTHERN AZ HONOR FLIGHT
one grant, 2018 · $1k
UM
UNITED METHODIST CHURCH OF GV
one grant, 2022 · $300
LS
LUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES OF THE SOUTHWEST
one grant, 2021 · $250 · revenue +24%

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

United Food Bank

United Food Bank unites communities to alleviate hunger.

Food & Nutrition

Humane Society of Southern Arizona

To compassionately serve pets and the people who love them.

Animals

Paz De Cristo Community Center

To feed, clothe and empower those struggling with hunger, poverty homelessness in the city of Mesa, Arizona area, by serving over 70,000 hot evening meals per year. (Continued on Schedule O, Statement 2)

Food & Nutrition

Marana Health Center Inc

Improving our community by providing exceptional, whole-person healthcare.

Health

Arizona Humane Society

We save the most vulnerable animals and enrich the lives of pets and people.

Animals

Animal Samaritans

At Animal Samaritans we champion compassion and respect for all living creatures, with a primary focus on dogs, cats, and the people who love them. We view pets not merely as animals, but as members of our families. As their guardians and…

Animals

Feeding San Diego

On a mission to connect every person facing hunger with nutritious meals by maximizing food rescue. through direct service and community partnerships, feeding san diego provides more than 26 million meals each year to children, families,…

Food & Nutrition

Fearless Kitty Rescue

As a no-kill cat rescue, serving our community of Fountain Hills, AZ and surrounding areas, we are dedicated to rescuing cats and kittens left homeless for whatever reason and placing them in a loving, responsible, permanent home.

Animals

Mexican Medical Inc

Bring healing and hope to the people of mexico.

International

Valley Humane SocietyInc

Valley Humane Society (VHS) creates a brighter future for cats and dogs by encouraging and strengthening the bond between people and pets. VHS rescues and rehabilitates companion animals, champions responsible caretaking, shares pets'…

Animals

Liberty Wildlife Inc

Liberty Wildlife nurtures the nature of Arizona by providing quality wildlife rehabilitation, environmental education and conservation consultation services for the community.

—

Donor Alliance Inc

Donor Alliance saves and heals lives through organ and tissue donation. Donor Alliance is one of 55 Federally designated, non-profit organ procurement organizations serving Colorado and most of Wyoming. Additionally, it is a member of the…

Health

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest; the most unlike its peers is Green Valley Concert Band Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

18 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 18 of the 44 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

18/18

Grantees still filing

10/18

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$16,185Education$5,475Health$3,375Animals$3,250Human Services$925Food & Nutrition$900Religion$250

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Community Foundation for Southern ArizonaAZ17.5× affinity6 shared granteesties to 6 of 6Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Community Foundation for Southern Arizona · Arizona Community Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Helen Russo Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Helen Russo Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

4report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–10%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

Play a game based on Helen Russo’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home