· Private foundation
HHL Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
100% of HHL Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Austin Community Foundation Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2022, the last year HHL Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 21 organizations, $50k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2022
- Under $10k27 grants · $9k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $41k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $20,500 |
| Ojai Playwrights Conference | $20,000 |
| LBJ Foundation | $2,500 |
| United Way of San Antonio | $1,000 |
| Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center | $1,000 |
| Rogers Park Montessori School | $259 |
| Sarah's Circle | $258 |
| Housing Opportunities for Women | $258 |
| Greater Chicago Food Depository | $250 |
| Deborahs Place | $250 |
| Age of Central Texas | $250 |
| Mother's Milk Bank | $250 |
| Kids In Need Of Defence | $250 |
| Whole Womans Advocacy Alliance | $250 |
| Family Eldercare | $211 |
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 (FY18–23, $6k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 24% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +56% since the first grant, against +6% for the ones you funded once.
54 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2022, 31 since wound down; 12 grantees were first funded in FY2022 (too recent to call). Read against FY2022, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2023, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- OPOJAI PLAYWRIGHTS CONFERENCE7× · 2017–2023 · $82k · revenue +56%
- GPGEFFEN PLAYHOUSE INC2× · 2017–2019 · $5k · revenue +18%
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC5× · 2017–2021 · $4k · revenue +102%
Funded once
Mercy Ships Internationalgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $1k · revenue +35%- TMTHE MONTESSORI NETWORKgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $1k · revenue +38%
- BSBarton Springs Conservancyone grant, 2017 · $1k · revenue -40%
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.
To strenghten people's ability to guarantee their individual and collective right to a healthy environment, via the development, implementation, and effective enforcement of national and international law.
Actionaid is an international network building a just, equitable, and sustainable world in solidarity with communities on the frontlines of poverty and injustice. actionaid usa is the u.s. branch of actionaid international, which works in…
The ACLU of Texas works with communities, at the State Capitol, and in the courts to protect and advance civil rights and civil liberties for every Texan, no exceptions.
United Food Bank unites communities to alleviate hunger.
The ACLU Foundation of Texas is the unyielding guardian and promoter of freedom, justice, equality and dignity of all people, particularly for those who are still fighting to secure the full exercise of their civil rights and liberties.…
American gas association's (the association) mission is to develop and advocate for informed, innovative, and durable policy that fulfills our nation's energy needs, environmental aspirations and economic potential. we are committed to…
Food forward fights hunger and prevents food waste by rescuing fresh surplus produce, connecting this abundance with people experiencing food insecurity, and inspiring others to do the same.
Water.org's goal is to bring safe water and sanitation to the world through access to small, affordable loans.
The Equal Justice Center is a non-profit law firm and employment justice organization which empowers low-income families, workers, and communities to achieve fair treatment in the workplace, in the justice system, and in our shared society…
The american theatre guild is dedicated to providing the experience of live theatre to foster passion, inspire creativity and empower youth within our communities.
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Freedom Center Texas and the most unlike its peers is Climate First Replacing Oil & Gas. 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 38 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% 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.
69 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. 69 of the 97 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 AUSTIN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds OJAI PLAYWRIGHTS CONFERENCE ↗
- Who funds GEFFEN PLAYHOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Central Texas Food Bank Inc ↗
- Who funds Health Alliance for Austin Musicians ↗
- Who funds CARITAS OF AUSTIN ↗
- Who funds Safe Alliance Inc ↗
- Who funds HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN INC ↗
- Who funds REFUGEE & IMMIGRANT CENTER FOR EDUCATION & LEGAL SERVICES ↗
- Who funds WHOLE WOMAN'S HEALTH ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds THE REFUGE FOR DMST ↗
- Who funds Texas Book Festival ↗
- Who funds SANDY HOOK PROMISE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SHARE OUR STRENGTH ↗
- Who funds DEBORAH'S PLACE ↗
- Who funds HELP OF OJAI INC ↗
- Who funds THE BATTERY CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds TEXAS DIAPER BANK ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds AUSTIN GROUPS FOR THE ELDERLY ↗
- Who funds SARAH'S CIRCLE ↗
- Who funds FRACTURED ATLAS INC ↗
- Who funds FAMILY ELDERCARE INC ↗
- Who funds Mercy Ships International ↗
- Who funds ROGERS PARK MONTESSORI SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THE MONTESSORI NETWORK ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF SAN ANTONIO AND BEXAR COUNTY ↗
- Who funds Barton Springs Conservancy ↗
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: Austin Community Foundation Inc · St David's Foundation · The Moody Foundation · One Skye Foundation Inc · Ecg Foundation · David & Sylvia Weisz Foundation · Shield-Ayres Foundation · United Way for Greater Austin · Better Business Bureau · United Way Worldwide · Scott & White Hospital Round Rock · The Bill M and Cecile Autrey Ham Charitable 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 HHL 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.
- Save the Children Federation Inc — 30% of income from government
- Cradles to Crayons Inc — 2% of income from government
- Sandy Hook Promise Foundation — 0% of income from government
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 HHL Foundation?
Find your warmest path to HHL 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.