· Private foundation
Helmle-Shaw Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k30 grants · $117k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $109k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SOCIETY | $20,000 |
| BO'S PLACE | $16,000 |
| UTMB SCHOOL OF HEALTH PROFESSIONALS | $15,000 |
| ST THOMAS EPISCOPAL CHURCH & SCHOOL | $15,000 |
| GALVESTON HISTORICAL FDN | $13,000 |
| ART MUSEUM OF SE TEXAS | $10,000 |
| RICE UNIVERSITY | $10,000 |
| HOUSTON METHODIST HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| JUDY'S MISSION TO END OVARIAN CANCER FOUNDATION | $9,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| LCMC ENDOWMENT FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| THE HERITAGE SOCIETY | $5,000 |
| COMMUNITY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH | $5,000 |
| DEPELCHIN CHILDREN'S CENTER | $5,000 |
| LAKE FORK VALLEY CONSERVANCY | $5,000 |
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 (FY20–25, $11k) 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +50% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
53 repeat relationships — 26 still active in FY2025, 27 since wound down; 11 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, 74% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $57k 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
- WMWilliam Marsh Rice University8× · 2017–2025 · $126k · revenue +104%
- BPBo's Place9× · 2017–2025 · $88k · revenue +22%
- TMTHE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON8× · 2017–2025 · $75k · revenue +96%
Funded once
- JSJENNE SEALY HOSIPTAL GIFT FUNDone grant, 2017 · $30k
- WMWilliams Marshall Rice Universityone grant, 2022 · $13k
- SLSan Leon Oyster Fest INCone grant, 2024 · $5k · revenue 0%
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 mission of the Houston Museum of Natural Science shall be to preserve and advance the general knowledge of natural science; to enhance in individuals the knowledge of and delight in natural science and related subjects; and to maintain…
To generate superior long-term investment returns to support The University of Texas and Texas A&M University systems as they provide world-class teaching, push the boundaries of discovery, and achieve excellence in patient healthcare for…
Lone Star Flight Museum (LSFM) celebrates flight and achievements in Texas aviation, engages youth through STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), and believes aviation inspires achievement and endless possibilities.
The witte museum inspires people to shape the future of texas through transformative and relevant experiences in nature, science and culture.
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,…
Plant, protect and promote trees all over the greater Houston area.
To recognize the accomplishments and contributions of our outstanding Texas business leaders and to perpetuate and inspire the values of entrepreneurial spirit, personal integrity, and community leadership in all generations of Texans.
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 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…
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…
To enrich life through discovery, education, and the conservation of plants and the natural environment.
South texas college of law houston provides a diverse body of students the opportunity to obtain an exceptional legal education, preparing graduates to serve their community and profession with distinction.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Methodist Hospital Foundation and the most unlike its peers is The Marine Society of the City of New York. 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 37 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) — 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 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.
35 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. 35 of the 82 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 William Marsh Rice University ↗
- Who funds GALVESTON HISTORICAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Bo's Place ↗
- Who funds THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds LAKE FORK VALLEY CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Texas Children's Hospital ↗
- Who funds 1894 INC ↗
- Who funds Southern Methodist University ↗
- Who funds The Heritage Society ↗
- Who funds OAK CLIFF CEMETERY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds HOUSTON LIVESTOCK SHOW AND RODEO INC ↗
- Who funds LAKE CITY ARTS COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds HILLSDALE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds LCMC Endowment Fund Inc ↗
- Who funds THE METHODIST HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL TAY-SACHS & ALLIED DISEASES ASS ↗
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: Shell USA Company Foundation · Greater Houston Community Foundation · Albert & Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation · John P McGovern Foundation · Harris & Eliza Kempner Fund Inc · Strake Foundation · The Brown Foundation Inc · Texas Instruments Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · National Philanthropic Trust
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 Helmle-Shaw 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.