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John R Eckel Jr Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

John R Eckel 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.

$1.2M
Granted FY2024still arriving
29
Grants FY2024still arriving
3
States reached
$100k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Arts & Culture$11MEducation$1.1MEmployment$350kHealth$200kEnvironment$178kYouth Development$135kCommunity Improvement$108kReligion$100kOther$0
02FY2024 · 29 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

  • $10k–50k18 grants · $395k
  • $50k–250k11 grants · $810k
$25,000
Median grant
3
States reached
$23M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Menil Foundation Inc$100,000
Whitney Museum of American Art$100,000
Whitney Museum of American Art$100,000
Orange Show Foundation$100,000
Menil Foundation Inc$75,000
Menil Foundation Inc$75,000
Genesys Works$60,000
The Museum of Fine Arts Houston$50,000
Lawndale Art and Performance Center$50,000
Buffalo Bayou Partnership$50,000
The Museum of Fine Arts Houston$50,000
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston$40,000
Project Row Houses$40,000
University of Houston$30,000
Orange Show Foundation$25,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 100% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 13%Whitney Museum of American Art: $150k → 17%Whitney Museum of American Art: $150k → 17%Whitney Museum of American Art: $125k → 17%Whitney Museum of American Art: $100k → 17%Whitney Museum of American Art: $100k → 17%Whitney Museum of American Art: $100k → 17%Whitney Museum of American Art: $100k → 17%Whitney Museum of American Art: $100k → 17%Menil Foundation Inc: $750k → 16%Whitney Museum of American Art: $100k → 17%Menil Foundation Inc: $700k → 16%Whitney Museum of American Art: $50k → 17%Menil Foundation Inc: $426k → 16%Whitney Museum of American Art: $50k → 17%Menil Foundation: $419k → 16%Whitney Museum of American Art: $50k → 17%Menil Foundation Inc: $300k → 16%Menil Foundation Inc: $100k → 16%Menil Foundation Inc: $100k → 16%Menil Foundation Inc: $100k → 16%Menil Foundation Inc: $100k → 16%Columbia University: $500k → 17%Menil Foundation: $79k → 16%Menil Foundation Inc: $75k → 16%Columbia University: $500k → 17%Menil Foundation Inc: $75k → 16%Elton John AIDS Foundation: $100k → 17%Menil Foundation Inc: $68k → 16%Elton John AIDS Foundation: $100k → 17%Rothko Chapel: $50k → 16%Menil Foundation Inc: $50k → 16%Rothko Chapel: $50k → 16%Menil Foundation Inc: $50k → 16%Contemporary Arts Museum Houston: $40k → 16%Genesys Works: $75k → 16%Genesys Works: $60k → 16%Genesys Works: $60k → 16%Genesys Works: $60k → 16%Genesys Works: $60k → 16%Genesys Works: $60k → 16%Genesys Works: $60k → 16%Genesys Works: $50k → 16%Buffalo Bayou Partnership: $50k → 16%Lawndale Art and Performance Center: $50k → 16%Lawndale Art and Performance Center: $50k → 16%Lawndale Art and Performance Center: $50k → 16%Lawndale Art and Performance Center: $40k → 16%Lawndale Art and Performance Center: $40k → 16%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
04

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 7% of John R Eckel Jr Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address.

John R Eckel Jr Foundationlessmore of its giving
Placed by recipient address · 2.2% directed abroad (not shown)
How this is measured
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

99%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$12M · 23 repeat orgs$66k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +34% since the first grant, against -5% for those funded once.

23 repeat relationships: 19 still active in FY2024, 4 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

23
5

Total granted

$12M
$56k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+34%
-5%

Still filing today

87%
60%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
Arts & CultureEnvironmentPhilanthropyHealthReligionEducationOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • TM
    THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON
    8× · 2017–2024 · $4.9M · revenue +96%
  • WM
    WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART
    8× · 2017–2024 · $1.2M · revenue +161%
  • LA
    Lawndale Art & Performance Center
    8× · 2017–2024 · $410k · revenue +75%

Funded once

  • AH
    ARMAND HAMMER MUSEUM OF ART AND CULTURAL CENTER INC
    one grant, 2022 · $20k · revenue -6%
  • MM
    MISSISSIPPI MUSEUM OF ART INC
    one grant, 2022 · $15k · revenue -5%
  • AH
    Armand Hammer Museum
    one grant, 2018 · $10k
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
Kadist Collection Manager Inc
Arts & Culture
2
Kimbell Art Foundation
Arts & Culture
3
Berggruen Institute
Education
4
American Museum of Natural History

The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."

Arts & Culture
5
The Pierpont Morgan Library

The Morgan Library & Museum celebrates and shares the history and process of human creativity from antiquity to the present day through the preservation, study, and interpretation of a dynamic and growing collection.

Education
6
Metropolitan Museum of Art

The metropolitan museum of art collects, studies, conserves, and presents significant works of art across all times and cultures in order to connect people to creativity, knowledge, and ideas.

Arts & Culture
7
Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is a private, non-profit institution chartered by the State of New York Department of Education in 1929 to foster public awareness of modern and contemporary art. (Continued in Schedule O)

Arts & Culture
8
Apex Art Curatorial Program Inc

Apex Art Curatorial Program is a resolutely noncommercial visual art exhibition space which provides curators and artists with a venue dedicated to ideas that are often too provocative or too small in scope for display elsewhere. Apex Art…

Arts & Culture
9
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

See schedule osfmoma believes the art of our time is vital and shares it with passion and purpose, and that art and the creative process can open minds and help build a better world. for that reason, we assemble unparalleled collections,…

Arts & Culture
10
San Diego Museum of Art

To inspire, educate and cultivate curiosity through great works of art.

Arts & Culture
11
Houston Museum of Natural Science

The mission of the Houston Museum of Natural Science shall be to preserve and advance the general knowledge of natural science; to enhance in individuals the knowledge of and delight in natural science and related subjects; and to maintain…

Arts & Culture
12
The Phillips Collection

The phillips collection is the oldest museum of modern and contemporary art in the u.s. in addition to presentation of works from the permanent collection and special exhibitions, the museum maintains active educational, academic,…

Arts & Culture
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Menil Foundation Inc; the most unlike its peers is Galveston Island Nature Tourism Council. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
05the grantee network

25 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 25 of the 30 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
4
Early backer (in before they grew)
25/25
Grantees still filing
17/25
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON: $4,942,460 · Arts & CultureTHE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTONMenil Foundation Inc: $3,469,771 · Arts & CultureMenil Foundation IncWHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART: $1,175,000 · Arts & CultureWHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ARTLawndale Art & Performance Center: $410,000 · Arts & Culture+9 more: $1,130,000 · Arts & Culture+9 moreTHE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK: $1,000,000 · EducationWilliam Marsh Rice University: $50,000 · EducationGenesys Works: $485,000 · OtherUniversity of Houston: $70,000 · OtherGulf Coast - A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts: $35,000 · Other+3 more: $35,000 · OtherBuffalo Bayou Partnership Inc: $107,500 · EnvironmentHouston Botanic Garden: $75,000 · EnvironmentHermann Park Conservancy: $50,000 · EnvironmentGALVESTON ISLAND NATURE TOURISM COUNCIL: $48,000 · EnvironmentELTON JOHN AIDS FOUNDATION INC: $200,000 · HealthRothko Chapel: $100,000 · ReligionARTCOUNCIL INC DBA ARTADIA: $75,000 · PhilanthropyUNITED JEWISH APPEAL-FEDERATION OF JEWISH PHILANTHROPIES OF NEW YORK INC: $6,000 · PhilanthropyPROUNITAS INC: $30,000 · Youth Development
Arts & Culture$11,127,231Education$1,050,000Other$625,000Environment$280,500Health$200,000Religion$100,000Philanthropy$81,000Youth Development$30,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetTHE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON: $4,942,460 over 8y, 0.9% of budgetMenil Foundation Inc: $3,469,771 over 8y, 4.2% of budgetWHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART: $1,175,000 over 8y, 0.2% of budgetTHE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK: $1,000,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetLawndale Art & Performance Center: $410,000 over 8y, 12% of budgetProject Row Houses: $330,000 over 8y, 3.1% of budgetThe Orange Show Foundation: $275,000 over 8y, 4.0% of budgetTHE NEW GROUP INC: $225,000 over 8y, 1.2% of budgetELTON JOHN AIDS FOUNDATION INC: $200,000 over 2y, 0.8% of budgetContemporary Arts Museum Houston: $150,000 over 6y, 0.7% of budgetBuffalo Bayou Partnership Inc: $107,500 over 5y, 0.2% of budgetRothko Chapel: $100,000 over 2y, 1.6% of budgetHouston Botanic Garden: $75,000 over 3y, 0.4% of budgetARTCOUNCIL INC DBA ARTADIA: $75,000 over 5y, 1.2% of budgetFotofest Inc: $75,000 over 3y, 1.4% of budgetHermann Park Conservancy: $50,000 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetWilliam Marsh Rice University: $50,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetGALVESTON ISLAND NATURE TOURISM COUNCIL: $48,000 over 8y, 3.2% of budgetGulf Coast - A Journal of Literature and Fine Arts: $35,000 over 4y, 4.7% of budgetPROUNITAS INC: $30,000 over 2y, 0.7% of budgetSHAKESPEARE THEATRE OF NEW JERSEY: $30,000 over 3y, 0.3% of budgetARMAND HAMMER MUSEUM OF ART AND CULTURAL CENTER INC: $20,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetMISSISSIPPI MUSEUM OF ART INC: $15,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetAstrodome Conservancy: $10,000 over 1y, 6.3% of budgetUNITED JEWISH APPEAL-FEDERATION OF JEWISH PHILANTHROPIES OF NEW YORK INC: $6,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

The Brown Foundation …Houston Endowment IncGreater Houston Commu…Houston Arts AllianceJohn P McGovern Found…The Elkins FoundationThe Andrew W Mellon F…Oshman FoundationAnchorage Foundation …The Wortham Foundatio…The Susan Vaughan Fou…The Cullen Foundation
The Brown Foundation IncTX23.8× affinity9 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Brown Foundation Inc · Houston Endowment Inc · Greater Houston Community Foundation · Houston Arts Alliance · John P McGovern Foundation · The Elkins Foundation · The Andrew W Mellon Foundation · Oshman Foundation · Anchorage Foundation of Texas · The Wortham Foundation Inc · The Susan Vaughan Foundation Inc · The Cullen Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization John R Eckel Jr Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from John R Eckel Jr Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%1%4%8%15%funder's share of their income ↑0%5%10%15%20%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    9report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–20%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to John R Eckel Jr Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to John R Eckel 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 30 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on John R Eckel Jr’s filings →

    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The endowment market
    who holds foundation money, and what just moved
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home