· Private foundation
John H Watson Charitable Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k6 grants · $34k
- $10k–50k16 grants · $291k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $272k
- $250k+1 grant · $1.0M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| AUBURN UNIVERSITY | $1,011,000 |
| EVERGREEN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH | $147,000 |
| ALABAMA MEDIA FOUNDATION | $125,000 |
| VARIOUS OTHER TAX-EXEMPT ORGANIZATIONS (CONTRIBUTIONS OF 2500 OR LESS) | $31,850 |
| CHILD ADVOCACY CENTER | $30,000 |
| VIVIAN B ADAMS SCHOOL | $25,500 |
| WIREGRASS HOPE GROUP | $25,000 |
| CHRYSALIS A HOME FOR GIRLS | $20,000 |
| ALABAMA INSTITUTE FOR DEAF AND BLIND | $20,000 |
| DOTHAN ROTARY FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| FRIENDS OF ARMY AVIATION | $20,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $20,000 |
| ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT PARTNERSHIP OF AL | $15,000 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF OZARK | $12,000 |
| ACTS CHURCH CHRISTIAN CENTER | $11,500 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY20–25, $129k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, 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 +23% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
31 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $52k 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
- WHWIREGRASS HOPE GROUP INC5× · 2020–2025 · $80k · revenue +57%
- TCTHE CHILD ADVOCACY CENTER INC3× · 2023–2025 · $63k · revenue +16%
- VBVIVIAN B ADAMS SCHOOL BOARD3× · 2021–2025 · $61k · revenue +2%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $250k
- WUWIREGRASS UNITED WAY INCone grant, 2021 · $165k · revenue -5%
- 1N1819 NEWS LLCone grant, 2023 · $125k
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 alabama broadcasters association (the association) is the official voice of the broadcasting industry in alabama. we are dedicated to protecting and enhancing broadcasting, and promoting the professional status of our members.the aba…
The wiregrass pet rescue and adoption center is dedicated to creating an exemplary animal shelter and pet adoption and community friendly facility in dothan/houston county, alabama. wprac will provide for the basic needs for domesticated…
To provide a child-focused approach to the intervention, treatment, prevention, and prosecution of child abuse cases. to provide free therapy to child abuse victims and age appropriate awareness in our school systems.
Operation of a public art museum
To work in partnership with families and organizations to ensure that all alabama children (birth to five) get everything they need to develop to their fullest potential.
Our mission is to speak for the well-being of Alabama's children through research, public awareness, and advocacy.
The alabama alliance netowrk works to strengthen and enhance alabama's civic society through research, education, and grantmaking
Established to serve as an advocate of children & to reduce the trauma & anxiety of victims of child abuse by providing coordinated multi- disciplinary & human approach to the investigation & interviewing process.
To educate, empower, and improve services for mental health consumers in the state of alabama.
Our mission is to help alleviate hunger and food insecurity in west alabama.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Alabama Policy Institute Inc and the most unlike its peers is Alabama Pro-Life Coalition Education Fund 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 40 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 21% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
25 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. 25 of the 62 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 ALABAMA POLICY INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds ALABAMA MEDIA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WIREGRASS UNITED WAY INC ↗
- Who funds WIREGRASS HOPE GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds THE CHILD ADVOCACY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds VIVIAN B ADAMS SCHOOL BOARD ↗
- Who funds ALABAMA NETWORK OF FAMILY RESOURCE CENTERS ↗
- Who funds OZARK DALE COUNTY LIBRARY INC ↗
- Who funds THE DOTHAN ROTARY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds DOTHAN BOTANICAL GARDENS INC ↗
- Who funds JUDICIAL WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds WIREGRASS AREA FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds CHRYSALIS A HOME FOR GIRLS INC ↗
- Who funds GIRLS INC OF DOTHAN ↗
- Who funds ALABAMA PRO-LIFE COALITION EDUCATION FUND 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 Paul & Barbara Flowers Foundation · Wiregrass Foundation · The George & Laura Flowers Foundation · The Daniel Foundation of Alabama · Alabama Power Foundation Inc · Robert and Carol Flowers Foundation · Newton Family Foundation Inc · Dove Family Foundation · Bruce G Cochener Foundation · Smurfit Westrock US Foundation F/K/A Westrock Foundation · Carmax Foundation · Edward Jones 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 H Watson 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.
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How do I get to John H Watson Charitable Foundation?
Find your warmest path to John H Watson Charitable 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.