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Alabama · Private foundation

Joseph E and Caroline B Vella Foundation

Its FY2020 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$52k
Granted FY2020
11
Grants FY2020
11
Organizations funded FY2020
18%
First-time grantees FY2020
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2020
$500
Largest grant, FY2020
$26,000
Organizations funded a year
11 to 20
FY2017 to FY2020
States reached, FY2020
1
Total assets, FY2020
$4.5M
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2020, 18% of the organizations Joseph E and Caroline B Vella Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 1% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2020, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $535 went to new ones.

50%100%’18’19’20
RenewedFirst-time

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

’18’19’20
Recreation & SportsCrime & LegalOther
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.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY202011$52k18%
FY201913$89k31%
FY201820$154k45%
FY201715$67kn/a
100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2020.

Religion$142kEducation$134kArts & Culture$30kHousing & Shelter$24kRecreation & Sports$8kHealth$7kCommunity Improvement$6kCrime & Legal$6kOther$0

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2020, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

GranteeTotal grantedYearsShare of their budget
Spring Hill College$60,00020%
Historic Restoration Society Inc$30,00013%
St Marys Home$16,7004n/a
Mobile Carnival Association Inc$7,70020%
Mobile Bar Foundation Inc$5,50025%
South Alabama Land Trust Inc$702n/a
Friends of Magnolia Cemetery Inc$3510%

Plus 23 recipients with no EIN on record ($242k), not named here.

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.

Alabama Power Foundation IncAL13.4× affinity4 shared granteesties to 1 of 1Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Alabama Power Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund

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.

Compare Joseph E and Caroline B Vella Foundation with peer funders

About Joseph E and Caroline B Vella Foundation

How much does Joseph E and Caroline B Vella Foundation give?
Joseph E and Caroline B Vella Foundation reported 11 grants totaling $51,650 in its FY2020 IRS filing. It funded between 11 and 20 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2020.
What does Joseph E and Caroline B Vella Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2020, its largest causes are Religion (39%), Education (37%), Arts & Culture (8%).
Who are Joseph E and Caroline B Vella Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2020: Spring Hill College ($60k), Historic Restoration Society Inc ($30k), St Marys Home ($17k).
Does Joseph E and Caroline B Vella Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2020, 18% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Joseph E and Caroline B Vella Foundation accept unsolicited applications?
Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Which funders back the same organizations as Joseph E and Caroline B Vella Foundation?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Alabama Power Foundation Inc, Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund.
Where is Joseph E and Caroline B Vella Foundation based?
Joseph E and Caroline B Vella Foundation is based in AL.

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 2020, released 2020. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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