· Private foundation
James C & Charlotte Wardlaw Charitable 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.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 92% of JAMES C & CHARLOTTE WARDLAW CHARITABLE FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k13 grants · $27k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| EMORY UNIVERSITY | $10,000 |
| NO GA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| GFWC LAFAYETTE WOMENS CLUB | $5,000 |
| WALKER CO AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOC | $5,000 |
| FRIENDS OF THE MARSH HOUSE | $2,500 |
| WALKER COUNT HISTORIC SOCIETY | $2,500 |
| SCENIC CITY CLAY ARTS | $1,900 |
| ST JUDES CHILDRENS RESARCH HOSPITAL | $1,000 |
| TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| CHATTANOOGA PUBLIC LIBRARY | $750 |
| EAST TN STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION | $750 |
| CHAMBLIS CENTER | $500 |
| UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY | $500 |
| HILLSDALE COLLEGE | $300 |
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 (FY20–20, $500) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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 +119% since the first grant, against +16% for the ones you funded once.
11 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2024, 9 since wound down; 11 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 12% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $32k 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
- CRCHEROKEE REGIONAL LIBRARY3× · 2017–2019 · $56k
- FEFAIRYLAND ELEMENTARY SCHOOL6× · 2018–2023 · $13k
- COCHURCH OF THE GOOD SHEPARD2× · 2018–2020 · $8k
Funded once
- YWYOUNG WOMENS LEADERSHIP ACADEMYone grant, 2021 · $20k
- 2P2ND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH BELOVED WOMENone grant, 2023 · $5k
- WCWALKER COUNTY AFRICAN AM HISTORICAL SOCIETYone grant, 2023 · $5k
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.
Chattanooga design studio seeks to elevate the quality of life for all citizens through guidance, collaboration, innovation, and education that promotes livable, accessible, walkable, and humane urban design.
To conserve the unique character of tennessee's natural and historic landscapes and sites for future generations.
Our mission is to provide financial and volunteer assistance with land acquisition, design, construction, and maintenance of the Cumberland Trail in Tennessee; to serve as an advocate for the Cumberland Trail and the regions bounding it in…
Our mission is to connect chattanooga's technology sector to drive regional economic growth.
The organization's primary mission is conserving land where people and nature can thrive by creating green corridors linking existing public lands using conservation easments and outright purchase.
Mission: to create economically diverse neighborhoods filled with financially empowered citizens and housing for all.vision: all chattanoogans can afford a safe place in a strong neighborhood to call home. belief: we believe the future of…
Greenspaces exists to further sustainability in the chattanooga region, by promoting and developing environmentally preferable practices for living, working and building.
To protect the architectural heritage of chattanooga through historic preservation, advocacy, and education
The mission of the lake champlain land trust is to save the scenic beauty, natural communities, and recreational amenities of lake champlain by permanently preserving significant islands, shoreline areas, and natural communities in the…
To educate and promote an understanding of the responsibility to preserve and protect our environmental, cultural and historical resources through programs and events
Promotion of commerce
As a nationally accredited land trust, we conserve and manage land for public benefit in North Carolinas Southern Piedmont. We have conserved 235 properties, totaling 17,786 acres of land. We also facilitate the creation of a 1600 mile…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Sculpture Fields At Montague Park and the most unlike its peers is Beloved Woman. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
16 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. 16 of the 52 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 CHATTANOOGA GIRLS LEADERSHIP ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds HOMES & HAVENS ↗
- Who funds SCENIC CITY CLAY ARTS ↗
- Who funds LULA LAKE LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds BELOVED WOMAN ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds REFLECTION RIDING ARBORETUM AND NATURE CENTER ↗
- Who funds SCULPTURE FIELDS AT MONTAGUE PARK ↗
- Who funds CRABTREE FARMS OF CHATTANOOGA INC ↗
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: The Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga Inc · Benwood Foundation Inc · Lyndhurst Foundation Inc · Chattanooga Christian Community Foundation · The Hacker and Kitty Caldwell Family Foundation Inc · Robert F Stone Foundation AKA Bobby Stone Foundation · Frank Jb & Emma S Varallo Foundation · Riverview Foundation Inc · Hazel Montague Hutcheson Foundation · Footprint Foundation Inc · Tucker Foundation · Weldon F Osborne Foundation Inc
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 James C & Charlotte Wardlaw Charitable 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.