· Private foundation
Milton R Brown Family Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k23 grants · $20k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $24k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| YERKES FUTURE FOUNDATION | $13,000 |
| HOUSTON BALLET | $10,873 |
| DAYA | $3,000 |
| D ELVIN BROWN SCHOLARSHIP | $3,000 |
| HOUSTON GRAND OPERA | $2,500 |
| LAKE GENEVA FRESH AIR ASSOC | $2,500 |
| MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS | $2,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| BAYOU BEND COLLECTION & GARDENS | $750 |
| MERCURY CHAMBER ORCHERSTRA INC | $575 |
| THE MUSEUM OF FLIGHT | $500 |
| HOUSTON PROF FIRE FIGHTERS ASSOC | $500 |
| HOPE BIOSCIENCES RESEACH FOUNDATION | $500 |
| GREATER DES MOINES BOTANICAL GARDEN | $500 |
| AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY | $500 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 60% of your 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.
32 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 17 since wound down; 10 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 82% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $8k 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
- GLGENEVA LAKE CONSERVANCY INC6× · 2019–2024 · $16k · revenue +103%
- LGLAKE GENEVA GARDEN CLUB FOUNDATION INC4× · 2021–2024 · $12k · revenue +168%
- TMTHE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON4× · 2020–2025 · $10k · revenue +51%
Funded once
- TJThe Junior League of Houston Incgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $5k · revenue +63%
- FOFRIENDS OF THE CORONADOone grant, 2020 · $2k · revenue -7%
- DCDISCOVERY CENTERone grant, 2020 · $2k
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 enrich life through discovery, education, and the conservation of plants and the natural environment.
The mission of the Houston Museum of Natural Science shall be to preserve and advance the general knowledge of natural science; to enhance in individuals the knowledge of and delight in natural science and related subjects; and to maintain…
Plant, protect and promote trees all over the greater Houston area.
The Heritage Society (THS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1954 whose mission is to tell the stories of the diverse history of Houston and Texas through collections, exhibits, the arts, educational programs, film, video, and other…
This organization accepts, receives, holds, and invests endowment funds for the benefit of Houston Grand Opera Association of Houston, Texas.
The Club's mission is to stimulate the knowledge and love of gardening and to protect the quality of the environment through programs and action in the fields of education, conservation, and civic improvement.
To advance the conservation of birds and their habitats in the Greater Houston Gulf Coast region by acquiring and maintaining critical habitat as bird sanctuaries, providing education programs and nature experiences, and advocating policy…
The Houston Local Information Initiative, Inc. provides public service journalism that reflects the civic needs of the diverse communities comprising Greater Houston.
The Menil Collection ("The Menil") is committed to its founders' belief that art is essential to human experience. The Menil fosters direct personal encounters with art, and welcomes all visitors free of charge to its museum buildings and…
The Health Museum is an innovative science center that provides an interactive and entertaining experience for all ages, promotes understanding and appreciation of the human body, mind, and spirit, and inspires a lifelong commitment to…
The mission of the Houston Arboretum & Nature Center is to provide education about the natural environment to people of all ages and to protect and enhance the Arboretum as a haven and sanctuary for native plants and animals.
The purpose of River Oaks Garden Club is to stimulate the knowledge and love of gardening and to restore, improve, and protect the quality of the environment through educational programs and action in the fields of conservation and civic…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is March of Dimes Inc and the most unlike its peers is Legacy Community Health Services Inc. 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 41 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 27% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 17% 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.
40 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. 40 of the 63 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 DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ↗
- Who funds YERKES FUTURE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GENEVA LAKE CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds LAKE GENEVA GARDEN CLUB FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE GARDEN CLUB OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds Houston Grand Opera Association Inc ↗
- Who funds GENEVA LAKE SAILING SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds The Junior League of Houston Inc ↗
- Who funds LAKE GENEVA FRESH AIR ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds Bo's Place ↗
- Who funds Hermann Park Conservancy ↗
- Who funds LEGACY COMMUNITY HEALTH SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds Houston Arts Alliance ↗
- Who funds Daya Inc ↗
- Who funds GENEVA AREA FOUNDATION INC HORTICULTURAL HALL ↗
- Who funds Hope Stone Inc ↗
- Who funds GREATER DES MOINES BOTANICAL GARDEN ↗
- Who funds MARCH OF DIMES INC ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF FLIGHT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE CORONADO ↗
- Who funds GENEVA LAKE ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds NAMI WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds Children At Risk ↗
- Who funds KLEHM ARBORETUM AND BOTANIC GARDEN INC ↗
- Who funds Astrodome Conservancy ↗
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: Greater Houston Community Foundation · The Brown Foundation Inc · Houston Endowment Inc · Shell USA Company Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Otzen Family Foundation Incorporated · Dean L & Rosemarie Buntrock Foundation · Strake Foundation · Albert & Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation · The Griffith Family Foundation · The John a Miller Family Foundation · A G Cox Charity Trust Xxxxx9001
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 Milton R Brown 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
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Find your warmest path to Milton R Brown 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.