· Private foundation
Herndon Fortnightly Club
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 it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| VIRGINIA TECH | $4,000 |
| COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY | $2,000 |
| GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY | $2,000 |
| FRIENDS OF HERNDON FORTNIGHTLY LIBRARY | $200 |
| ALL AGES READ TOGETHER | $150 |
| ROTARY CLUB OF HERNDON-RESTON | $100 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY19–19, $50) land where the poverty rate runs at 6%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
Which US states its grants reach
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +37% since the first grant, against +13% for those funded once.
19 repeat relationships: 2 still active in FY2025, 17 since wound down; 4 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, 71% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- UOUniversity of Michigan2× · 2018–2020 · $2k · revenue +195%
- WAWreaths Across America2× · 2023–2024 · $400 · revenue +6%
- OSOPERATION SMILE INC2× · 2018–2019 · $150 · revenue +37%
Funded once
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITYone grant, 2024 · $2k · revenue +10%- OOOFFICE OF UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIPS AND FINANCIAL AIDone grant, 2018 · $2k
- DPDC PUBLIC SCHOOLSone grant, 2022 · $2k
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.
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.
Drexel university fulfills its founder's vision of preparing each new generation of students for productive professional and civic lives while also focusing its collective expertise on solving society's greatest problems. drexel is an…
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
The trustees of the university of pennsylvania (the "university") sees itself as having a public service mission. in such regard, the university aims to provide a rich and diverse educational environment for its students; to pioneer…
See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.
The washington university is a co-educational, nondenominational university with a long and distinguished history of teaching, research and (cont'd on schedule o)
The central mission of the university of southern california is the development of human beings and society as a whole through the cultivation and enrichment of the human mind and spirit. the principal means by which our mission is…
Western new england university, a comprehensive private institution with a tradition of excellence in teaching and scholarship and a commitment to service, awards undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees in various departments from…
Wake Forest University, a 501(c)(3) institution of higher education, is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in the liberal arts and in graduate and professional education. The organization is comprised of seven constituent parts: Wake…
As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to path breaking research, unsurpassed teaching, and contributions to the betterment of our world. It seeks to fulfill this…
Education and Research
As the national university of the catholic church in the united states, founded and sponsored by the bishops of the country with the approval of the holy see, the catholic university of america is committed to being a comprehensive…
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.
How this is measured
19 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. 19 of the 70 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.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
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.
- Who funds GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds FRANKLIN & MARSHALL COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds University of Michigan ↗
- Who funds New York University ↗
- Who funds DEPAUL UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF HARTFORD ↗
- Who funds Rush University Medical Center ↗
- Who funds ROANOKE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds HOLLINS UNIVERSITY CORPORATION ↗
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.
Open a dossier: The Closet of the Greater Herndon Area Inc · United Way of the National Capital Area · The Community Foundation for Northern Virginia Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization Herndon Fortnightly Club funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Herndon Fortnightly Club. Bigger dots raise more.
- University of Hartford: 1% of income from government
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Herndon Fortnightly Club?
Find your warmest path to Herndon Fortnightly Club 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.
Play a game based on Herndon Fortnightly Club’s filings →