· Private foundation
Max and Betty Swanson Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k55 grants · $76k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $64k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA | $16,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA | $14,000 |
| LOVING LOIC FOUNDATION | $14,000 |
| MONTANA METH PROJECT | $10,000 |
| GREATER MISSOULA FAMILY YMCA | $10,000 |
| CHRISTIAN LIFE CENTER | $6,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $4,000 |
| BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS | $4,000 |
| MOUNTAIN HOME MONTANA | $3,000 |
| MISSOULA AGING SERVICES | $3,000 |
| HUMANE SOCIETY | $3,000 |
| MONTANA NATURAL HISTORY CENTER | $3,000 |
| RED WILLOW LEARNING CENTER | $2,500 |
| STROMSBURG LIBRARY FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
| NATIONAL MUSEUM OF FOREST SERVICE HISTORY | $2,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $155k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
82 repeat relationships — 53 still active in FY2024, 29 since wound down; 5 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, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $14k 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
- GMGREATER MISSOULA FAMILY YMCA6× · 2019–2024 · $53k · revenue +83%
- NMNATIONAL MUSEUM OF FOREST SERVICE HISTORY8× · 2017–2024 · $27k · revenue ×20
- UGUNION GOSPEL MISSION OF MISSOULA8× · 2017–2024 · $20k · revenue +203%
Funded once
- SHSHARON HAYDEN KOLB FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $13k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $5k
- MDMISSOULA DOWNTOWN FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $5k · revenue +26%
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.
To enhance community vitality by inspiring community giving and strengthening nonprofits
The mission of the montana land reliance (mlr) is to partner with landowners to provide permanent protection for private lands that are significant for agricultural production, fish and wildlife habitat, and open space.
To create and sustain an optimal business climate, business prosperity and a strong montana economy through advocacy, education and collaboration, working to provide an empowered and educated workforce, reduce business growth obstacles,…
Montana hospital association is the principal advocate for the interests of members in their efforts to improve the health status of the communities they serve.
To collectively serve as a catalyst for engagement and bonding of people to our wildlife and public lands in montana through a sense of place, education, access, research and stewardship.
Missoula Electric Cooperative, Inc. strives to uphold a commitment to service excellence, while delivering safe, affordable and reliable electricty to its members.
Keeping families with a sick child/children close to the care and resources they need, when it matters the most.
Missoula mountain bike coalition's mission is to promote and create mountain biking opportunities in missoula and surrounding areas through trail building, stewardship, advocacy and outreach.
The montana state parks foundation raises private support to enhance the visitors experience and build advocates for montanas state parks and recreation heritage.
An association providing community leadership and business advocacy sustaining economic vitality.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of Montana Inc and the most unlike its peers is Rocky Mountain Ballet Theatre. 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 31 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 7% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 9% 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.
47 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. 47 of the 110 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 THE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GREATER MISSOULA FAMILY YMCA ↗
- Who funds LOVING LOIC FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL MUSEUM OF FOREST SERVICE HISTORY ↗
- Who funds Opportunity Resources Inc ↗
- Who funds UNION GOSPEL MISSION OF MISSOULA ↗
- Who funds MOUNTAIN HOME MONTANA INC ↗
- Who funds ST PATRICK HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL OLYMPICS MONTANA INC ↗
- Who funds PARTNERSHIP HEALTH CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds MISSOULA COMMUNITY CHORUS INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER MISSOULA YOUTH FOR CHRIST ↗
- Who funds SIXTH JUDICIAL COURT CASAGAL PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds THE ROXY THEATER ↗
- Who funds MONTANA NATURAL HISTORY CENTER ↗
- Who funds HOME RESOURCE INC ↗
- Who funds RED WILLOW LEARNING CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds MONTANA METH PROJECT ↗
- Who funds MISSOULA FOOD BANK & COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
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: Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation · First Interstate BancSystem Foundation Inc · The Bill & Rosemary Gallagher Foundation · Town Pump Charitable Foundation · Headwaters Health Foundation of Western Montana · Montana Community Foundation Inc · The Llewellyn Foundation · Missoula Community Foundation · Gianforte Family Charitable Trust · Treacy Foundation · Sample Foundation Inc · The William H & Margaret M Wallace 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 Max and Betty Swanson 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.