· Private foundation
Joanne W Stephenson Education Foundation
Its FY2021 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 FY2017–2020.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHURCH OF CHRIST AT MOUNTAIN VIEW | $7,500 |
| LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE | $6,700 |
| CROSSPOINT CHURCH | $3,500 |
| THE DICKINSON SCHOOL OF LAW | $3,000 |
| ALLEGHENY COLLEGE | $2,000 |
| SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK | $2,000 |
| CLEMSON CORPS ENDOWMENT | $1,000 |
| THE MERRIE WOODE FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| FOOD BANK OF THE HUDSON VALLEY | $1,000 |
| GRACE PLACE MINISTRY INC | $1,000 |
| ARMY A CLUB | $750 |
| HUMANITIES TENNESSEE | $600 |
| TRAGEDY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM FOR SURVIVORS | $500 |
| DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS | $500 |
| FEDERATION OF STATE HUMANITIES COUNCILS | $500 |
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 (FY17–20) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 58% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +75% since the first grant, against +33% for the ones you funded once.
22 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2020, 6 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2020 (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 FY2020, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- LALEGAL AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS2× · 2018–2020 · $8k · revenue +98%
- GPGRACE PLACE MINISTRY INC4× · 2017–2020 · $4k · revenue +541%
- ACALLEGHENY COLLEGE2× · 2019–2020 · $3k · revenue +1%
Funded once
- WPWEST POINT THAYER HONORS PROGRAMone grant, 2017 · $800
- NANASHVILLE ADULT LITERACY COUNCIL INCgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $200 · revenue +33%
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.
As a diverse community of learners, we cultivate integrity, curiosity, connection and resilience.
Nashville public radio's mission is to be the most trusted & independent nashville voice, connecting our communities through non-partisan journalism, compelling storytelling, civil conversation and music discovery.
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
The association of american law schools' mission is to uphold and advance excellence in legal education.
Meredith college, grounded in the liberal arts and committed to professional preparation, educates and inspires students to live with integrity and provide leadership for the needs, opportunities and challenges of society.
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…
To advance the practice of higher education attorneys for the benefit of the institutions they serve.
Northeast college of health sciences (the college) is committed to academic excellence, leadership, and professional best practices in the health sciences.
Empowering college admission counseling professionals through education, advocacy, and community.
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Federation of State Humanities Councils and the most unlike its peers is Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 27 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 LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE AND THE CUMBERLANDS ↗
- Who funds FEDERATION OF STATE HUMANITIES COUNCILS ↗
- Who funds GRACE PLACE MINISTRY INC ↗
- Who funds ALLEGHENY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Merrie-Woode Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds HUMANITIES TENNESSEE ↗
- Who funds MONROE HARDING INC ↗
- Who funds REGIONAL FOOD BANK OF NORTHEASTERN NEW YORK INC ↗
- Who funds TRAGEDY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM FOR SURVIVORS INC ↗
- Who funds ASSOCIATION OF THE GRADUATES OF THE UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds SAFE HARBORS OF THE HUDSON INC ↗
- Who funds Book Em ↗
- Who funds NASHVILLE ADULT LITERACY COUNCIL 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 Middle Tennessee Inc · Memorial Foundation Inc · Vanderbilt University · The Frist Foundation · United Way of Middle Tennessee Inc · Hca Healthcare Foundation · Dollar General Literacy Foundation · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Endowment Foundation · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving 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 Joanne W Stephenson Education 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Joanne W Stephenson Education Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Joanne W Stephenson Education 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.