· Private foundation
Mills Family 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2020.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2020
- Under $10k3 grants · $6k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PEORIA RIVERFRONT MUSEUM | $10,000 |
| TRANSDANCE | $2,500 |
| READING LEGACIES | $2,500 |
| SDSU GOLF AZTEC CLUB | $1,050 |
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 (FY18–18, $250) land where the poverty rate runs at 19%, 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.
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 +134% since the first grant, against +66% for the ones you funded once.
11 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2020, 9 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2020 (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 FY2020, 78% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4k 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
- PRPeoria Riverfront Museum4× · 2017–2020 · $41k · revenue +105%
University of Illinois Foundation2× · 2017–2018 · $10k · revenue +127%- SDSAN DIEGO HUMANE SOCIETY AND SPCA2× · 2017–2018 · $4k · revenue +134%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2019 · $10k
- SDSAN DIEGO HUMAN SOCIETYone grant, 2019 · $3k
- BMBusey Mills Community Foundationone grant, 2018 · $3k
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 inspire conservation leadership by connecting people with wildlife and nature.
To provide essential value to our members, their careers, our partners, and the public, asce will: facilitate the advancement of technology; encourage and provide the tools for lifelong learning; promote professionalism and the profession;…
The zoological society of pittsburgh is dedicated to being a leader in, and significant contributor to, the conservation of endangered and threatened species. the society provides an enjoyable family experience that fosters understanding,…
Inspire people to enjoy and protect birds through recreation, education, conservation, and restoration of the environment, upon which we all depend.
To promote philanthropy to make santa cruz county a better place to live, now and in the future.we bring together people, ideas, and resources to inspire philanthropy and accomplish great things.
Lincoln park zoo is dedicated to connecting people with nature by providing a free, family-oriented wildlife experience in the heart of chicago and by advancing the highest quality of animal care, horticulture, education, science and…
Animal care sanctuary's lifesaving mission as a no kill organization envisions a community that promotes turning compassion into action for companion animals by: 1.) adopting healthy pet companions into loving homes. 2.) promoting the…
Children's services
To promote public health, safety, and welfare through the improvement of the quality and quantity of drinking water and the development and furtherance of understanding of the problems relating thereto.
San diego zoo wildlife alliance is committed to saving species worldwide by uniting our expertise in wildlife care and conservation science with our dedication to inspiring passion for nature.
To give members the ability to control their financial destiny by providing members with the means to satisfy their needs for financial services in a comfortable family-like environment. in doing so, the credit union strives to maintain…
To lead, serve and collaborate to mobilize enduring philanthropy for a better arizona.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Developmental Services Center of Champaign County Inc and the most unlike its peers is Clinic for the Rehabilitation of Wildlife Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 33 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 Peoria Riverfront Museum ↗
- Who funds University of Illinois Foundation ↗
- Who funds SAN DIEGO HUMANE SOCIETY AND SPCA ↗
- Who funds ACCESS YOUTH ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds READING LEGACIES ↗
- Who funds THE SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds CLINIC FOR THE REHABILITATION OF WILDLIFE INC ↗
- Who funds ACCESSITY ↗
- Who funds WD BOYCE COUNCIL BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds FOREST PRESERVE FRIENDS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CRISIS NURSERY ↗
- Who funds DEVELOPMENTAL SERVICES CENTER OF CHAMPAIGN COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds PEORIA FRIENDSHIP HOUSE OF CHRISTIAN SERVICE ↗
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: Mills Foundation · United Way of Champaign County · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Mills Family 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Mills Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Mills Family 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.