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· Private foundation

Louis 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.

$300k
Granted FY2024still arriving
6
Grants FY2024still arriving
4
States reached
$100k
Largest
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.

Education$583kYouth Development$547kArts & Culture$507kAnimals$192kEnvironment$60kCommunity Improvement$30k
02FY2024 · 6 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

  • $10k–50k3 grants · $50k
  • $50k–250k3 grants · $250k
$50,000
Median grant
4
States reached
$5.0M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
THRIVE$100,000
HEADWATERS ACADEMY$100,000
BUNSTON DAY SCHOOL$50,000
OTHER WORLD MEDIA$20,000
BOZEMAN HIGH SCHOOL BOZEMAN SPEECH AND DEBATE TEAM$15,000
FLORIDA KEYS WILD BIRD CENTER$15,000
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 9%, against an area that typically sits at 6%. 99% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 6%BELWIN CONSERVANCY: $5k → 6%BLAKE: $5k → 11%HEADWATERS ACADEMY: $105k → 10%KIMBERLY CREST HOUSE AND GARDENS: $5k → 14%FLORIDA KEYS WILD BIRD CENTER: $82k → 13%OTHER WORLD MEDIA: $90k → 7%BUNSTON DAY SCHOOL: $50k → 7%BELWIN CONSERVANCY: $5k → 6%THRIVE: $100k → 10%FLORIDA KEYS WILD BIRD CENTER: $30k → 13%OTHER WORLD MEDIA: $80k → 7%GUNSTON DAY SCHOOL: $50k → 7%THRIVE: $100k → 10%FLORIDA KEYS WILD BIRD CENTER: $25k → 13%OTHER WORLD MEDIA: $71k → 7%GUNSTON DAY SCHOOL: $8k → 7%HEADWATERS ACADEMY: $100k → 10%FLORIDA KEYS WILD BIRD CENTER: $15k → 13%OTHER WORLD MEDIA: $55k → 7%THRIVE: $100k → 10%FLORIDA KEYS WILD BIRD CENTER: $15k → 13%OTHER WORLD MEDIA: $50k → 7%THRIVE: $100k → 10%FLORIDA KEYS WILD BIRD CENTER: $10k → 13%OTHER WORLD MEDIA: $25k → 7%HEADWATERS ACADEMY: $100k → 10%MARRVELOUS PET RESUCUES & ADOPTIONS: $4k → 13%OTHER WORLD MEDIA: $20k → 7%HEADWATERS ACADEMY: $100k → 10%OTHER WORLD MEDIA: $10k → 7%THRIVE: $50k → 10%THRIVE: $50k → 10%THRIVE: $27k → 10%BOZEMAN HIGH SCHOOL BOZEMAN SPEECH AND DEBATE TEAM: $25k → 10%HEADWATERS ACADEMY: $25k → 10%THRIVE: $20k → 10%BOZEMAN HIGH SCHOOL BOZEMAN SPEECH AND DEBATE TEAM: $20k → 10%BOZEMAN SPEECH AND DEBATE: $20k → 10%BOZEMAN HIGH SCHOOL BOZEMAN SPEECH AND DEBATE TEAM: $15k → 10%ONE MONTANA: $10k → 10%ONE MONTANA: $10k → 10%ONE MONTANA: $10k → 10%HEADWATERS ACADEMY: $8k → 10%BOZEMAN SPEECH AND DEBATE: $3k → 10%WINDHORSE: $5k → 10%WINDHORSE: $5k → 10%WINDHORSE: $1k → 10%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.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

97%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$1.9M · 11 repeat orgs$64k to everyone else

11 repeat relationships: 5 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

11
3

Total granted

$1.9M
$14k

Still filing today

64%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 83% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $50k 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
EducationAnimalsOther
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

  • TH
    THE HEADWATERS ACADEMY INC
    6× · 2017–2024 · $438k · revenue +205%
  • OC
    OTHERWORLD CHILDREN'S MEDIA
    8× · 2017–2024 · $401k · revenue +213% · 90% of their budget
  • FK
    Florida Keys Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center Inc
    6× · 2017–2024 · $177k · revenue +144%

Funded once

  • B
    BLAKE
    one grant, 2020 · $5k
  • KC
    KIMBERLY CREST HOUSE AND GARDENS
    one grant, 2021 · $5k
  • MP
    MARRVELOUS PET RESUCUES & ADOPTIONS
    one grant, 2019 · $4k
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
04the grantee network

7 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. 7 of the 15 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.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
5
Early backer (in before they grew)
7/7
Grantees still filing
5/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

THRIVE INC: $546,500 · OtherTHRIVE INCOTHERWORLD CHILDREN'S MEDIA: $401,000 · OtherOTHERWORLD CHILDREN'S MEDIAMUSEUM OF THE ROCKIES INC: $101,250 · OtherMUSEUM OF THE ROCKIES INCBOZEMAN HIGH SCHOOL BOZEMAN SPEECH AND DEBATE TEAM: $60,000 · OtherGUNSTON DAY SCHOOL: $57,500 · OtherBUNSTON DAY SCHOOL: $50,000 · Other+7 more: $87,300 · Other+7 moreTHE HEADWATERS ACADEMY INC: $437,500 · EducationTHE HEADWATERS ACADEMY IN…Florida Keys Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center Inc: $177,496 · AnimalsFlorida Ke…
Other$1,303,550Education$437,500Animals$177,496

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetTHRIVE INC: $546,500 over 8y, 5.9% of budgetTHE HEADWATERS ACADEMY INC: $437,500 over 6y, 5.7% of budgetOTHERWORLD CHILDREN'S MEDIA: $401,000 over 8y, 90% of budgetFlorida Keys Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center Inc: $177,496 over 6y, 15% of budgetMUSEUM OF THE ROCKIES INC: $101,250 over 2y, 1.4% of budgetONE MONTANA: $30,000 over 3y, 5.5% of budgetBELWIN CONSERVANCY: $10,000 over 2y, 0.3% 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.

  • Who funds THRIVE INC ↗
  • Who funds THE HEADWATERS ACADEMY INC ↗
  • Who funds OTHERWORLD CHILDREN'S MEDIA ↗
  • Who funds Florida Keys Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center Inc ↗
  • Who funds MUSEUM OF THE ROCKIES INC ↗
  • Who funds ONE MONTANA ↗
  • Who funds BELWIN CONSERVANCY ↗

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.

David Winton Bell FoundationMN13.6× affinity4 shared granteesties to 3 of 3Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: David Winton Bell Foundation · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Louis Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Louis Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%6%25%56%100%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    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.

    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 15 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

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