· Private foundation
John Dawson 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 FY2022–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k8 grants · $165k
- $50k–250k14 grants · $1.1M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF THE VALLEY INC | $150,000 |
| JAZZ IN ARIZONA INC DBA THE NASH | $100,000 |
| MINDFULNESS FIRST | $100,000 |
| MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION ARIZONA CHAPTER | $100,000 |
| GOLDWATER INSTITUTE | $100,000 |
| ARIZONA FRIENDS OF FOSTER CHILDREN | $100,000 |
| FIESTA EVENTS INC | $50,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $50,000 |
| ARIZONA SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT COMMISSION | $50,000 |
| INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE | $50,000 |
| EAST VALLEY INST OF TECHNOLOGY FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| EXECUTIVE COUNCIL CHARITIES | $50,000 |
| CATO INSTITUTE | $50,000 |
| ARIZONA FREEDOM FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| HILLSDALE COLLEGE | $35,000 |
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 (FY22–24, $175k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
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 +37% since the first grant, against -9% for the ones you funded once.
14 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 8 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, 69% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $365k 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
- BGBARRY GOLDWATER INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH3× · 2022–2024 · $300k · revenue +62%
- AFARIZONA FREEDOM FOUNDATION3× · 2022–2024 · $175k · revenue +109%
- CICATO INSTITUTE3× · 2022–2024 · $150k · revenue +37%
Funded once
- BOBuild Our Little Theater Incone grant, 2023 · $75k · revenue -57% · 95% of their budget
- CFCENTER FOR ARIZONA POLICY INCone grant, 2023 · $50k · revenue -9%
- AHAmerican Heart Association Incgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $25k · revenue +25%
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 american civil liberties union of arizona is the state's premier guardian of liberty working through the arizona legislature and communities statewide to defend and preserve individual rights and freedoms guaranteed to all by the…
To celebrate excellence and cultivate opportunity in pk-12th grade arizona public education.
The mission of the aclu foundation of arizona is to defend and preserve, through litigation and public education, individual rights and freedoms guaranteed to all by the constitution and the laws of the united states and arizona.
The american enterprise institute is a community of scholars and supporters committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise. aei pursues these ideals through independent thinking and the…
Bringing arizonans together to create a stronger and brighter future for our state.
The institute's mission, as set out in its certificate of incorporation, is to promote the clarification and simplification of the law and its better adaptation to social needs, to secure the better administration of justice, and to…
To advocate for and act on education improvements that advance the quality of life for all arizonans.
Az wins is a coalition of organizations dedicated to achieving public policies that benefit working arizona families and advancing an inclusive, engaged, just and equitable state for all arizonans. in 2024 az wins substantially reduced its…
ATC's mission is to create world-class theatre about what it means to be alive today - inspiring curiosity and creativity, sparking empathy and joy - bringing all Arizonans together.
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Boys & Girls Clubs of the Valley Inc and the most unlike its peers is Build Our Little Theater Inc. 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 34 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 28% startups (under 5 years old) — 9% of your grantees by number, and just 11% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
22 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. 22 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 BARRY GOLDWATER INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF THE VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds HILLSDALE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds ARIZONA FREEDOM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CATO INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds ARIZONA SPORTS AND ENTERTAINMENT COMMISSION ↗
- Who funds Arizona Friends of Foster Children Foundation ↗
- Who funds MINDFULNESS FIRST ↗
- Who funds Phoenix Children's Hospital Foundation ↗
- Who funds WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds Build Our Little Theater Inc ↗
- Who funds EXECUTIVE COUNCIL CHARITIES ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR ARIZONA POLICY INC ↗
- Who funds FIESTA EVENTS INC ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE ↗
- Who funds BEYOND AUTISM INC ↗
- Who funds Libertas Network ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds AUTISM LIFE AND LIVING INC ↗
- Who funds ARIZONA COUNCIL ON ECONOMIC EDUCAT ↗
- Who funds CELEBRATE LIFE INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds US AMATEUR WEIGHTLIFTING 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: Arizona Community Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 John Dawson 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.
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% 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 John Dawson Foundation?
Find your warmest path to John Dawson 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.