· Private foundation
Mervin Bovaird 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k18 grants · $93k
- $10k–50k46 grants · $801k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $480k
- $250k+2 grants · $594k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Philbrook Museum of Art Inc | $330,000 |
| University of Tulsa | $264,000 |
| Oklahoma State University Foundation | $140,000 |
| Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma | $80,000 |
| University of Oklahoma - Tulsa | $75,000 |
| The Nature Conservancy | $75,000 |
| Reading Partners | $60,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $50,000 |
| Tulsa Community Foundation | $45,000 |
| Eden Village of Tulsa | $40,000 |
| Tulsa Tough Inc | $40,000 |
| Meals on Wheels of Metro Tulsa Inc | $30,000 |
| Newview Oklahoma Inc | $25,000 |
| Tulsa Zoo Management Inc | $25,000 |
| Tulsa Ballet | $25,000 |
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, $2.0M) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% 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 +26% since the first grant, against +17% for the ones you funded once.
122 repeat relationships — 66 still active in FY2024, 56 since wound down; 3 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, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $25k 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
The University of Tulsa8× · 2017–2024 · $2.4M · revenue +8%
THE PHILBROOK MUSEUM OF ART INC2× · 2022–2024 · $410k · revenue +54%- OSOklahoma State University Foundation6× · 2017–2024 · $325k · revenue +46%
Funded once
- GMGilcrease Museumone grant, 2019 · $100k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2023 · $75k · revenue -115%
- UOUniversity of Oklahomaone grant, 2021 · $75k
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.
Provide the poor of the city of tulsa, oklahoma an opportunity to improve their quality of life through guidance and training in the areas of education, employment, family skills, healthcare, housing, socialization and spirituality.
To inspire children, connect families, and build community through exploration, exhibits, programming, and play.
To improve the lives of children and youth in oklahoma's child welfare system by providing resources and building community.
The tulsa regional chamber transforms the tulsa region by attracting and retaining employers, talent and tourism for long-term prosperity.
The operation of a public charter school in the tulsa area with the mission to equip all scholars with the academic skills, content knowledge, and ethical character required for college graduation and life success.
To prepare students for college through a rigorous arts infused program.
The tulsa area united way unites people and resources to improve lives and strengthen our communities.
To support community efforts to provide a greater supply of affordable housing in tulsa county and the surrounding area.
Goodwill empowers people to reach their full potential through work opportunities, training, and support services.
The mission of tsas middle and high school is to provide students a multi-strand liberal arts education in a safe, supportive, individualized and challenging school environment through a college preparatory curriculum.
The Tulsa SPCA's mission is to improve the lives of dogs and cats, and their human companions.
To promote ethical conduct among attorneys, to advance the effective administration of our judicial system, to ensure equal access to justice for all citizens and to engender respect for the legal profession, the law and the governing…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mental Health Association in Tulsa Inc dba Mental Health Association Oklahoma and the most unlike its peers is Center for Consumer Recovery 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 38 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
111 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. 111 of the 175 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 Tulsa ↗
- Who funds TULSA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TULSA DAY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE PHILBROOK MUSEUM OF ART INC ↗
- Who funds Oklahoma State University Foundation ↗
- Who funds Tulsa ToughInc ↗
- Who funds READING PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds NEWVIEW OKLAHOMA INC ↗
- Who funds Clarehouse Inc ↗
- Who funds The Town & Country School Inc ↗
- Who funds TULSA BALLET THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds CROSSOVER COMMUNITY IMPACT INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOOD BANK OF EASTERN OKLAHOMA INC ↗
- Who funds Child Abuse Network Inc dba Child Advocacy Network ↗
- Who funds STAND IN THE GAP INC ↗
- Who funds LITTLE LIGHT HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds DOMESTIC VIOLENCE INTERVENTION SERVICES ↗
- Who funds Mental Health Association in Tulsa Inc dba Mental Health Association Oklahoma ↗
- Who funds Fab Lab Tulsa Inc ↗
- Who funds IRON GATE INC ↗
- Who funds TULSA OPERA INC ↗
- Who funds CHAMBER MUSIC TULSA ↗
- Who funds PHILOS HOSPITALITY INC ↗
- Who funds GIRL SCOUTS OF EASTERN OKLAHOMA INC ↗
- Who funds NEIGHBOR FOR NEIGHBOR INC ↗
- Who funds LEGAL AID SERVICES OF OKLAHOMA INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds JOHN 316 MISSION ↗
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 Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation · The Gelvin Foundation · The Hardesty Family Foundation Inc · George Kaiser Family Foundation · Ralph and Frances McGill Foundation the Trust Company of Oklahoma · Grace & Franklin Bernsen Foundation · The Sharna and Irvin Frank Foundation · Tulsa Community Foundation · Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation · Oneok Foundation Inc · One Gas Foundation Inc · Morningcrest Healthcare 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 Mervin Bovaird 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Newview Oklahoma Inc — 45% of income from government
- Domestic Violence Intervention Services — 15% of income from government
- Legal Aid Services of Oklahoma Inc — 13% of income from government
- Tulsa Community Foundation — 11% of income from government
- Tulsa Day Center Inc — 9% of income from government
- Youth Services of Tulsa Inc — 8% of income from government
- Mental Health Association in Tulsa Inc dba Mental Health Association Oklahoma — 8% of income from government
- The University of Tulsa — 5% of income from government
- The Philbrook Museum of Art Inc — 4% of income from government
- Ywca Tulsa Inc — 3% of income from government
- Oklahoma Arts Institute Inc — 1% of income from government
- Family & Childrens Services Inc — 1% of income from government
- Tulsa Habitat for Humanity Inc — 0% of income from government
- Global Gardens Incorporated — 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.