· Private foundation
James R Meadows Jr 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
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 · FY2024
- Under $10k18 grants · $68k
- $10k–50k18 grants · $326k
- $50k–250k7 grants · $735k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FISK UNIVERSITY | $210,000 |
| PEABODY COLLEGE OF VANDERBILT | $100,000 |
| AMERICAN BAPTIST COLLEGE | $100,000 |
| CUMBERLAND HEIGHTS | $100,000 |
| MERCY CORPS | $100,000 |
| LAND TRUST FOR TENNESSEE | $75,000 |
| BACKFIELD IN MOTION | $50,000 |
| WPLN | $30,000 |
| YWCA OF NASHVILLE & MIDDLE TENNESSEE | $30,000 |
| PRESTON TAYLOR MINISTRIES | $25,000 |
| SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK | $25,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $25,000 |
| SOUTHERN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW CENTER | $25,000 |
| MARTHA O'BRYAN CENTER | $20,000 |
| NURTURE THE NEXT | $20,000 |
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 (FY17–21, $48k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 98% 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.
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 +47% since the first grant, against +46% for the ones you funded once.
82 repeat relationships — 39 still active in FY2024, 43 since wound down; 4 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, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $135k 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
- FUFISK UNIVERSITY8× · 2017–2024 · $2.2M · revenue +54%
- TWTHE WEBB SCHOOL8× · 2017–2024 · $599k · revenue +49%
- MCMercy Corps7× · 2017–2024 · $345k · revenue +19%
Funded once
- UWUNITED WAY OF KENTUCKY INCgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $75k · revenue +112%
- CRCUMBERLAND RIVER COMPACT INCgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $30k · revenue +107%
- TFTENNESSEANS FOR ALTERNATIVES TO THE DEATH PENALTYgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $25k · revenue +51%
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.
Ntc mission is to advance the diverse technology ecosystem by connecting and promoting members, attracting, growing and retaining tech talent, and providing opportunities to reinvest in the greater nashville community.
Nashville banner is a locally owned, community supported, civic news organization. we exist to empower the people of nashville to make informed decisions by providing non-partisan journalism from an independent, nonprofit newsroom. we are…
Greenways for nashville promotes, supports, and enhances a system of greenways and open space in nashville and davidson county.
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
To restore and protect clean water and healthy ecosystems for rivers in tennessee by employing scientific expertise and collaborative relationships to develop, promote, and support broad community stewardship and action.
Tennessee progress works to uplift the values and voices of the progressive movement across tennessee by elevating the issues that matter most to our communities. tennessee progress is a digital and communications hub for the progressive…
Nashville bar association is organized to improve the practice of law through education, service & fellowship
Nashville conflict resolution center (ncrc) works to provide access to justice for all tennesseeans. through a restorative approach of mediation, we help people resolve legal crises quickly, safely, and effectively outside of a courtroom.
Nashvillehealth creates a culture of health and wellbeing by serving as a convener to open dialogue, aligning resources and building smart strategic partnerships to create a plan for health unique to nashvilles needs.
Tirrc is a statewide, immigrant and refugee-led collaboration. our mission is to build power, amplify our voices, and organize communities to advocate for our rights. our vision is a stronger, more inclusive tennessee where people of all…
United ways of tennessee is a statewide organization providing member support services to 31 united ways across the state. we accomplish our mission through advocacy, collaboration and collective action that provides solutions to our…
Union university provides christ-centered education that promotes excellence and character development in service to church and society.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Nashville Cares and the most unlike its peers is The National Museum of Women in the Arts. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 31 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
80 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. 80 of the 120 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 FISK UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE WEBB SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Mercy Corps ↗
- Who funds PRESTON TAYLOR MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY dba AMERICAN BAPTIST COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds BACKFIELD IN MOTION ↗
- Who funds SILOAM HEALTH ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds THE LAND TRUST FOR TENNESSEE INC ↗
- Who funds TENNESSEE JUSTICE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds EQUAL CHANCE FOR EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds MARTHA O'BRYAN CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds NASHVILLE PUBLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds YWCA NASHVILLE & MIDDLE TENNESSEE ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE INC ↗
- Who funds NASHVILLE PUBLIC RADIO ↗
- Who funds NASHVILLE PUBLIC TELEVISION INC ↗
- Who funds ABE'S GARDEN ↗
- Who funds NASHVILLE FOOD PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds NURTURE THE NEXT FKA PREVENT CHILD ABUSE TENNESSEE ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF KENTUCKY INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CUMBERLAND UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW CENTER ↗
- Who funds BLUE MONARCH ↗
- Who funds NASHVILLE COMMUNITY BAIL FUND ↗
- Who funds Habitat for Humanity ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR DISASTER PHILANTHROPY INC ↗
- Who funds THE CONTRIBUTOR 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: Memorial Foundation Inc · The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee Inc · Hca Healthcare Foundation · The Steven & Laurie Eskind Family Foundation · Dorothy Cate and Thomas F Frist Foundation · United Way of Middle Tennessee Inc · The Blum Family Foundation · The Frist Foundation · The Wade-Buntin Family Foundation · Joe C Davis Foundation · The Healing Trust Formerly Baptist Healing Hospital Trust · Vanderbilt University
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 R Meadows Jr 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.
- Mercy Corps — 47% 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 James R Meadows Jr Foundation?
Find your warmest path to James R Meadows Jr 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.