How much does Milton and Denice Johnson Family Foundation give?

Milton and Denice Johnson Family Foundation reported 54 grants totaling $3,930,500 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 20 and 52 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2024.

What does Milton and Denice Johnson Family Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2025, its largest causes are Religion (36%), Education (20%), Arts & Culture (7%).

Who are Milton and Denice Johnson Family Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2025: Woodmont Christian Church ($3.3M), Harding Academy ($1.0M), Pencil Foundation ($520k).

Does Milton and Denice Johnson Family Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 6% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Milton and Denice Johnson Family 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 Milton and Denice Johnson Family Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Hca Healthcare Foundation, Memorial Foundation Inc, The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee Inc.

Where is Milton and Denice Johnson Family Foundation based?

Milton and Denice Johnson Family Foundation is based in TN.

Milton and Denice Johnson Family Foundation

Milton and Denice Johnson Family Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Milton and Denice Johnson Family Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$3.9M

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$2.5M

Largest

01What it funds

0198% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Religion$3.3MEducation$1.8MArts & Culture$682kHealth$604kHousing & Shelter$600kFood & Nutrition$400kHuman Services$382kPhilanthropy$325kOther$0

02FY2025 · 54 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k19 grants · $86k
$10k–50k26 grants · $445k
$50k–250k7 grants · $650k
$250k+2 grants · $2.8M

$10,000

Median grant

States reached

$38M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
WOODMONT CHRISTIAN CHURCH	$2,500,000
PENCIL	$250,000
WOODMONT CHRISTIAN CHURCH	$175,000
CREATIVETS	$125,000
ABE'S GARDEN	$100,000
SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK	$100,000
ON THE AVENUE FOUNDATION	$50,000
COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE	$50,000
TEACH FOR AMERICA	$50,000
Individual grant recipient	$40,000
FRIST ART MUSEUM	$30,000
CENTENNIAL PARK CONSERVANCY	$25,000
TRANSFORMATION LIFE CENTER	$25,000
UNITED WAY OF GREATER NASHVILLE	$25,000
COMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS OF TENNESSEE	$25,000

02The need

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:

Its human-services grants (FY20–25, $264k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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.

96%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$8.7M · 56 repeat orgs$377k to everyone else

56 repeat relationships: 47 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$8.7M

$222k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+32%

+35%

Still filing today

79%

67%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $155k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureEducationHuman ServicesHealthRecreation & SportsYouth DevelopmentOther

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

HA
HARDING ACADEMY
4× · 2020–2023 · $1.0M · revenue +27%
FRIST ART MUSEUM
6× · 2020–2025 · $165k · revenue +48%
NZ
NASHVILLE ZOO INC
6× · 2020–2025 · $130k · revenue +85%

Funded once

FC
FAMILY & CHILDREN'S SERVICE
one grant, 2024 · $100k · revenue -29%
OA
OPERATION ANDREW GROUP INCgraduated
one grant, 2021 · $25k · revenue +49%
BC
BLOOD CANCER UNITED INC
one grant, 2022 · $25k · revenue -16%

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

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Nashville Public Radio

Nashville public radio's mission is to be the most trusted & independent nashville voice, connecting our communities through non-partisan journalism, compelling storytelling, civil conversation and music discovery.

Arts & Culture

Nashville Technology Council

Ntc mission is to advance the diverse technology ecosystem by connecting and promoting members, attracting, growing and retaining tech talent, and providing opportunities to reinvest in the greater nashville community.

Community Improvement

The Nashville Chamber Public Benefit Foundation

The nashville chamber public benefit foundation supports the work of the nashville area chamber of commerce through efforts to improve the quality of education, encourage public and private efforts around education, and to facilitate the…

—

Nashville Cares

Nashville cares exists to end the hiv epidemic, promote comprehensive sexual health and end sexual health stigmatization and discrimination through prevention, education, treatment, support, advocacy, and strategic partnership.

Health

Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce

The nashville area chamber of commerce facilitates community leadership to create economic prosperity.

—

Leadership Nashville Foundation

Leadership nashville identifies and invites a diverse cross-section of professional, civic and charitable leaders to participate in an intensive program designed to give them a multi-dimensional understanding of the community.

—

Nashville Public Media Inc

Nashville banner is a locally owned, community supported, civic news organization. we exist to empower the people of nashville to make informed decisions by providing non-partisan journalism from an independent, nonprofit newsroom. we are…

Arts & Culture

Nashvillehealth

Nashvillehealth creates a culture of health and wellbeing by serving as a convener to open dialogue, aligning resources and building smart strategic partnerships to create a plan for health unique to nashvilles needs.

Health

Girls Write Nashville

Girls write nashville empowers expression through songwriting, production, mentorship and creative community for teen artists. we are an artist and educator-led 501(c)(3) creative youth development program in nashville, tn allied with…

Arts & Culture

Tennessee State Collaborative On Reforming Education

The mission of the state collaborative on reforming education (score) is to catalyze transformative change in tennessee education so that all students can achieve success. score is an independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan institution,…

Education

Equally Created

To ensure accessible early childhood education for all families in the greater nashville area.

Human Services

Our Place Nashville

To empower adults with developmental disabilities by providing affordable housing, work that is meaningful and an inclusive community in which to live.

Housing & Shelter

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Nashville Rescue Mission; the most unlike its peers is Chi Boule Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

57 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. 57 of the 75 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

57/57

Grantees still filing

37/57

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$5,206,500Education$1,814,500Arts & Culture$780,000Housing & Shelter$600,000Philanthropy$320,000Health$291,500Human Services$264,000

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

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.

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.

Hca Healthcare FoundationTN64.7× affinity30 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Hca Healthcare Foundation · Memorial Foundation Inc · The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee Inc · The Frist Foundation · Dorothy Cate and Thomas F Frist Foundation · Dettwiller Foundation · Joe C Davis Foundation · The Steven & Laurie Eskind Family Foundation · Nashville Predators Foundation · United Way of Middle Tennessee Inc · Enchiridion Foundation · Louie M & Betty M Phillips Foundatn

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 Milton and Denice Johnson Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Milton and Denice Johnson Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

21report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%

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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Milton and Denice Johnson Family Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Milton and Denice Johnson 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.

Play a game based on Milton and Denice Johnson Family’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home