How much does Horace Dawson Foundation give?

Horace Dawson Foundation reported 51 grants totaling $108,577 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 44 and 51 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2024.

What does Horace Dawson Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2025, its largest causes are Education (24%), Religion (11%), Arts & Culture (11%).

Who are Horace Dawson Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2025: Simpson College ($60k), Maryville College ($60k), Geneva Foundation of Presbyterian Homes ($50k).

Does Horace Dawson Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 46% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Horace Dawson 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 Horace Dawson Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Seattle Foundation, United Way of King County, Impactassetsinc.

Where is Horace Dawson Foundation based?

Horace Dawson Foundation is based in MD.

Horace Dawson Foundation

Horace Dawson Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Horace Dawson 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.

$109k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$10k

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Education$140kReligion$62kArts & Culture$61kHealth$59kHuman Services$56kPhilanthropy$55kFood & Nutrition$40kYouth Development$17kOther$0

02FY2025 · 51 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k46 grants · $59k
$10k–50k5 grants · $50k

$1,000

Median grant

States reached

$883k

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
Geneva Foundation of Presbyterian Homes	$10,000
Maryville College	$10,000
Chautauqua Institution	$10,000
Presbyterian Church (USA)	$10,000
Simpson College	$10,000
Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano	$6,200
Wellesley College	$5,300
YWCA Seattle King Snohomish	$3,000
YMCA of Greater Boston	$2,114
GiveDirectly	$2,046
Sky Island Alliance	$2,030
YMCA of the East Bay - Irving Deutscher	$2,000
Muscular Dystrophy Association	$2,000
Planned Parenthood of America	$1,660
Howard Brown Health Center	$1,500

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 (FY20–25, $22k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 56% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-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.

84%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$481k · 54 repeat orgs$94k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +26% since the first grant, against +22% for those funded once.

54 repeat relationships: 30 still active in FY2025, 24 since wound down; 17 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$481k

$78k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+26%

+22%

Still filing today

72%

51%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $16k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

HealthEducationHuman ServicesFood & NutritionEnvironmentPhilanthropyOther

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

SC
Simpson College
6× · 2020–2025 · $60k · revenue +37%
MC
MARYVILLE COLLEGE
6× · 2020–2025 · $60k · revenue +16%
CI
CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION
6× · 2020–2025 · $50k · revenue +312%

Funded once

KC
King's Chapel
one grant, 2023 · $14k
GF
GENEVA FOUNDATION
one grant, 2022 · $10k
KC
Kings Chapel MEMORIAL PROJECT
one grant, 2022 · $3k

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.

The Union of Concerned Scientists Inc

The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.

International

United Food Bank

United Food Bank unites communities to alleviate hunger.

Food & Nutrition

Food Forward Inc

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.

Food & Nutrition

University of New Haven

The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…

Education

President and Fellows of Harvard College

Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.

Education

Friends of the Earth

Friends of the earth strives for a more healthy and just world by defendng the environment and human health while advancing social and economic justice by conducting research and education, transforming the economy so it protects the…

Environment

Public Health Institute

Public health institute generates and promotes research, leadership and partnerships to build capacity for strong public health policy, programs, systems and practices.

Health

The George Washington University

The mission of the george washington university (gw) is to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings…

Education

Npr Foundation

The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…

—

The Water Research Foundation

The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…

Environment

American Gas Association

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…

—

Open Markets Institute

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.

Education

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Greater Washington Community Foundation; the most unlike its peers is The Haven 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

88 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 88 of the 135 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)

85/88

Grantees still filing

56/88

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$212,774Education$139,592Philanthropy$59,138Arts & Culture$52,791Human Services$45,537Health$39,364Food & Nutrition$28,505

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.

Seattle FoundationWA22× affinity11 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Seattle Foundation · United Way of King County · Impactassetsinc · Gates Foundation · East Bay Community Foundation · Food Lifeline · Northwest Harvest Emm · Community Foundation for Southern Arizona · New Venture Fund · Puget Sound Energy Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc

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 Horace Dawson Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Horace Dawson Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

2get no government money at all

21report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

1rely on government for over half their income

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 Horace Dawson’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