· Public charity
Houston Bar Foundation
The Houston Bar Foundation supports programs that help provide legal representation to the indigent, promote community understanding of our legal system, and foster the administration of justice.
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
- $10k–50k2 grants · $35k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $180k
- $250k+1 grant · $1.6M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Houston Volunteer Lawyers Program | $1,645,000 |
| The Center for Pursuit | $128,751 |
| Houston Habitat for Humanity | $51,238 |
| Harris County Jury Assembly | $24,500 |
| HAY Center Foundation | $10,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $569k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 14%. 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.
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 +110% since the first grant, against -4% for the ones you funded once.
10 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- HVHOUSTON VOLUNTEER LAWYERS PROGRAM INC9× · 2017–2025 · $11M · revenue +143% · 58% of their budget
- HHHouston Habitat for Humanity Inc6× · 2017–2025 · $370k · revenue +7%
- HAHouston Area Women's Center3× · 2017–2019 · $25k · revenue +110%
Funded once
- HCHarris County Civil Courthouseone grant, 2024 · $33k
- HCHarris County Criminal Justice Centerone grant, 2024 · $33k
- HIHouston Independent Sch Distone grant, 2020 · $30k
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 Houston Bar Foundation supports programs that help provide legal representation to the indigent, promote community understanding of our legal system, and foster the administration of justice.
The Houston Local Information Initiative, Inc. provides public service journalism that reflects the civic needs of the diverse communities comprising Greater Houston.
The mission of Family Service Center of Houston and Harris County (Family Houston) is to create a stronger community for tomorrow by helping individuals and families meet the challenges they face today. We help others help themselves.
Houston MediaSource aspires to be the community media center for the City of Houston. HMS provides public access to media platforms that promote citizen engagement, protect the right to free expression, and provide opportunities to advance…
As the Houston affiliate of the National Christian Foundation (NCF), our mission is to serve and encourage givers to grow as faithful stewards who give wisely to further the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Our mission is to provide high quality and caring services to promote healthy people and communities.
Houston Legal Aid Center protects and advances the rights of the poor through the poor through the provision of pro bono or reduced cost legal services while also addressing the underlying spiritual and relational issues affecting…
The mission of Breakthrough Houston (BTH) is to work with highly motivated students to achieve post-secondary success and empower aspiring leaders to become the next generation of educational advocates.
The coalition for the homeless of houston/harris county acts as a catalyst, uniting partners and maximizing resources to move people experiencing homelessness into permanent housing with supportive services.
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…
The mission of the Houston Area Parkinson Society is to use a whole-human approach to community building, which reduces the fear and isolation associated with a Parkinson's diagnosis.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Houston Area Women's Center and the most unlike its peers is Combined Arms. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 16 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 HOUSTON VOLUNTEER LAWYERS PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR PURSUIT ↗
- Who funds Houston Habitat for Humanity Inc ↗
- Who funds Houston Area Women's Center ↗
- Who funds HAY Center Foundation ↗
- Who funds HOUSTON BAR ASSOCIATION AUXILIARY CHARITABLE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds Combined Arms ↗
- Who funds The Houston Food Bank ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR URBAN TRANSFORMATION INC ↗
- Who funds Houston Bar Association ↗
- Who funds HARRIS RESOURCE FOUNDATION ↗
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: Greater Houston Community Foundation · Houston Endowment Inc · The Houston Food Bank · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Houston Bar 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.