· Public charity
Houston Museum District Association
The Houston Museum District Association (HMDA) is dedicated to collaborative efforts that maximize the enjoyment of the artistic, scientific, and educational resources of Houston Museum District institutions by all residents of and visitors to Houston.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2019.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2019
- $50k–250k8 grants · $834k
- $250k+3 grants · $1.8M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON | $833,719 |
| HOUSTON MUSEUM OF NATURAL SCIENCE | $546,636 |
| THE MENIL COLLECTION | $407,683 |
| CHILDREN'S MUSEUM OF HOUSTON | $192,699 |
| THE HEALTH MUSEUM | $114,046 |
| HOUSTON ZOO INC | $114,046 |
| CONTEMPORARY ARTS MUSEUM HOUSTON | $114,046 |
| HOLOCAUST MUSEUM HOUSTON | $114,046 |
| MOODY CENTER FOR THE ARTS | $61,611 |
| THE JUNG CENTER OF HOUSTON | $61,611 |
| LAWNDALE ART CENTER | $61,611 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–19) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 14%. 100% of your 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.
11 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2019, 0 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2019, 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
- TMTHE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON3× · 2017–2019 · $2.5M · revenue +96%
Houston Museum of Natural Science3× · 2017–2019 · $1.6M · revenue +33%- CMCHILDREN'S MUSEUM INC3× · 2017–2019 · $579k · revenue +89%
Funded once
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 museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
The Museum brings together the arts with history, science, & activism to tell stories about the unequal effects of environmental change in order to inspire action on the climate crisis.
To enrich life through discovery, education, and the conservation of plants and the natural environment.
The mission of the Houston Academy of Medicine is to support the community service, education, scientific, and charitable programs for physicians, their patients, and the community at large in Harris County.
To collect, explore, collect and interpret and exhibit the material and intellectual culture in Houston, the Southwest and African Diaspora for current and future generations for all people.
The Houston Museum District Association (HMDA) is dedicated to collaborative efforts that maximize the enjoyment of the artistic, scientific, and educational resources of Houston Museum District institutions by all residents of and…
The Heritage Society (THS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1954 whose mission is to tell the stories of the diverse history of Houston and Texas through collections, exhibits, the arts, educational programs, film, video, and other…
The Chicago History Museum strives to be a destination for learning, inspiration, and civic engagement. Through dynamic exhibitions, tours, programs, digital resources, and special events, the Museum connects people to Chicago's history…
The Morgan Library & Museum celebrates and shares the history and process of human creativity from antiquity to the present day through the preservation, study, and interpretation of a dynamic and growing collection.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Children's Museum Inc and the most unlike its peers is William Marsh Rice University. 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.
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 THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds Houston Museum of Natural Science ↗
- Who funds Menil Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds Contemporary Arts Museum Houston ↗
- Who funds HOLOCAUST MUSEUM HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds Houston Zoo Inc ↗
- Who funds John P McGovern Museum of Health & Medical Science ↗
- Who funds William Marsh Rice University ↗
- Who funds CG Jung Educational Center of Houston Texas Inc ↗
- Who funds Lawndale Art & Performance Center ↗
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 · Shell USA Company Foundation · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Houston Museum District Association 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.