· Private foundation
John & Polly Sparks 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 FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k56 grants · $1.1M
- $50k–250k7 grants · $620k
- $250k+4 grants · $1.5M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHILDRENS HEALTHCARE OF ATLANTA INC | $500,000 |
| EMORY UNIVERSITY | $421,029 |
| CHRISTIAN CITY INC | $350,000 |
| GRADY HEALTH FOUNDATION | $250,000 |
| THE MOREHOUSE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE INC | $200,000 |
| AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL FDN | $150,000 |
| COMM FOOD BANK OF ATLANTA | $60,000 |
| FIFTH AVENUE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH | $60,000 |
| STEP UP ON SECOND STREET | $50,000 |
| FAMILIES 4 FAMILIES | $50,000 |
| HEAD STRONG PROJECT INC | $50,000 |
| 247 GATEWAY LLC | $40,000 |
| PASSION FOR HAITI FDN INC | $40,000 |
| FAMILIES AND WORK INSTITUTE INC | $40,000 |
| OUR HOUSE INC | $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 (FY18–24, $2.8M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 96% 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 +46% since the first grant, against +21% for the ones you funded once.
72 repeat relationships — 55 still active in FY2024, 17 since wound down; 12 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, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $270k 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
- CCChristian City Inc5× · 2018–2024 · $3.7M · revenue +123%
- SUSTEP UP ON SECOND STREET INC4× · 2018–2024 · $2.1M · revenue +234%
- TGTHE GRADY HEALTH FOUNDATION INC5× · 2018–2024 · $1.4M · revenue +67%
Funded once
- SUSTEP UP ON SECOND STREE, INC.one grant, 2022 · $200k
- GCGEORGIA CENTER FOR CHILD ADVOCACY INCone grant, 2022 · $50k · revenue +11%
- TGTHE GATEWAY CENTER INCone grant, 2022 · $50k · revenue +7%
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.
We, saint joseph's health system and trinity health, serve together in the spirit of the gospel as a compassionate and transforming healing presence within our communities. honoring the heritage and advancing the ministry of the sisters of…
Overcoming homelessness, poverty, and family violence by becoming self-sufficient
Kidspeace, founded in 1882, is a healthcare nonprofit that is dedicated to providing hope, help, and healing to children, adults, and those who love them.continued on schedule o.with 40 offices and facilities across seven states, this…
Our mission is to create thriving communities by helping nonprofits succeed. our work revolves around four primary areas of focus.1. we are a hub for social innovation 2. we are a capacity accelerator for organizations and their people3.…
To perpetuate a village community to provide progressive life assistance to adults with developmental disabilities so that they can maximize their abilities and maintain their independence in the least restrictive environment.
The organization provides afforable, supportive housing for metro atlanta's most vulnerable, particularly those living with or impacted by hiv.
Georgia Court Appointed Special Advocates, Inc. (the Organization) is a nonprofit organization which strengthens and supports court-sanctioned, affiliate CASA programs that empower community volunteers who advocate for abused or neglected…
New american pathways is an atlanta based nonprofit with the mission of helping refugees and georgia thrive.
Strengthen and preserve the well-being of individuals, couples, and families through easy, affordable access to professional counseling services.
To partner with patients and communities to support wellness through compassionate, quality healthcare.
Health care for the homeless works to end homelessness through racially equitable health care, housing and advocacy in partnership with those of us who have experienced it.
We, saint joseph's health system and trinity health, serve together in the spirit of the gospel as a compassionate and transforming healing presence within our communities. honoring the heritage and advancing the ministry of the sisters of…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Atlanta Union Mission Corporation and the most unlike its peers is Passion for Haiti Foundation Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 37 years old; the field is 11. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 28% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 19% 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.
78 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. 78 of the 117 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 Christian City Inc ↗
- Who funds STEP UP ON SECOND STREET INC ↗
- Who funds THE GRADY HEALTH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Emory University ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MOREHOUSE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE ↗
- Who funds HEAD STRONG PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds OUR HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds Must Ministries Inc ↗
- Who funds PASSION FOR HAITI FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CHRIS 180 INC ↗
- Who funds Nicholas House Inc ↗
- Who funds 3KEYS INC ↗
- Who funds NAMI Georgia Inc ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FRIENDSHIP INC ↗
- Who funds SOLOMON'S TEMPLE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ATLANTA COMMUNITY FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds OPTIONS INC ↗
- Who funds Hillside Inc ↗
- Who funds ATLANTA UNION MISSION CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds 247 GATEWAY LLC ↗
- Who funds METRO ATLANTA YOUTH FOR CHRIST INC ↗
- Who funds CaringWorks Inc ↗
- Who funds BREAKTHROUGH T1D ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST CHRISTIAN HOSPICE & HOPE HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds RICHMONT GRADUATE UNIVERSITY ↗
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 Imlay Foundation Inc · United Way of Greater Atlanta Inc · The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta Inc · Tuw Thomas H Pitts · Georgia Power Foundation Inc · Tr Uw Charles I Branan · Atl Fdn-W Peters Main · Betty and Davis Fitzgerald Foundation Inc · The Waterfall Foundation Inc · Ryan Ida Alice Tuw Main · Community Foundation for Northeast Georgia · THDF II Inc DBA The Home Depot Foundation & Homer Fund
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 & Polly Sparks 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.
- Kids House of Seminole Inc — 10% of income from government
- Pace Center for Girlsinc — 2% of income from government
- Clearwater Marine Aquarium Inc — 1% of income from government
- The Nemours Foundation — 0% of income from government
- Southeastern Guide Dogs Inc — 0% of income from government
- Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center Inc — 0% of income from government
- K9S for Warriors 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 & Polly Sparks Foundation?
Find your warmest path to John & Polly Sparks 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.