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Mississippi · Public charity

Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance

The mission of the MISSISSIPPI HILLS HERITAGE AREA ALLIANCE is to preserve, enhance, interpret, and promote the cultural and heritage assets of the hills region. Its key objectives are to increase jobs and visitation to the area and to develop and support projects and programs that sustain the heritage tourism industry within the region.

$407k
Granted FY2025(still arriving)
12
Itemized grants FY2025
7
Organizations funded FY2024
29%
First-time grantees FY2024
Read the full brief
Itemized, FY2025
$387k
The rest is grants the schedule does not break out
Median grant, FY2025
$20,000
Largest grant, FY2025
$100,010
Organizations funded a year
3 to 8
FY2018 to FY2024
States reached, FY2025
2
Total assets, FY2025
$106k

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2024, 29% of the organizations Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance funded were first-time grantees, receiving 22% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 78% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $37k went to new ones.

50%100%’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
Arts & CultureCommunity ImprovementEducationHuman ServicesOther
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.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2025still arriving12$387k58%
FY20247$171k29%
FY20236$154k67%
FY20223$61k33%
FY20217$126k57%
FY20208$114k75%
FY20195$75k40%
FY20184$61k75%
100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Arts & Culture$718kCommunity Improvement$287kRecreation & Sports$39kEducation$38kPublic Benefit$30kPhilanthropy$22kEnvironment$17kCrime & Legal$16kOther$0

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2025, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

GranteeTotal grantedYearsShare of their budget
Mississippi Main Street Association Inc$150,00035%
University of Mississippi$137,9313n/a
Columbus Cultural Heritage Foundation$90,000130%
Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau$65,2834n/a
Union County Historical Society Inc$63,880312%
Ripley Main Street Association Inc$56,530217%
Visit Oxford$53,4873n/a
Pontotoc County Chamber of Commerce$52,70029%
Tupelo Police Athletic League$51,7503n/a
City of Oxford$40,0002n/a
Show all 31 grantees
All grantees of Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance by total granted
GranteeTotal grantedYearsShare of their budget
Mississippi Main Street Association Inc$150,00035%
University of Mississippi$137,9313n/a
Columbus Cultural Heritage Foundation$90,000130%
Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau$65,2834n/a
Union County Historical Society Inc$63,880312%
Ripley Main Street Association Inc$56,530217%
Visit Oxford$53,4873n/a
Pontotoc County Chamber of Commerce$52,70029%
Tupelo Police Athletic League$51,7503n/a
City of Oxford$40,0002n/a
Landers Center$39,5933n/a
Corinth Area Cvb$36,3502n/a
Booneville Main Street Association$36,268213%
Yoknapatawpha Arts Council Inc$29,56722%
New Albany Main Street Association$24,620110%
Tishomingo County Development Foundation$23,68726%
Friends of Siege & Battle of Corint$20,0001n/a
City of Hernando$20,0002n/a
Mississippi Presenters Network$20,000117%
Mississippi Heritage Trust$20,00015%
Rust College$20,0001n/a
Chickasaw County Historical & Genealogical Society$20,0001n/a
Greater Starkville Development Partnership$20,0001n/a
The Columns Tippah County Interpretive Center$17,973157%
Friends of the Tishomingo State Park$17,0001n/a
Rosa Foundation$14,852113%
Brices Crossroads Battlefield Comm$10,05019%
Friends of the Siege and Battle of Corinth Inc$10,00016%
Holly Springs Main Street Association Incorporated$9,325122%
City of New Albany$7,0001n/a
Preserve Marshall County & Holly Sp$5,7971n/a

Where it is load-bearing

Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance supplied at least a quarter of the budget for 2 of its grantees at some point. The chart plots its 16 largest grantees; load-bearing ones sit top left.

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetMississippi Main Street Association Inc: $150,000 over 3y, 5.5% of budgetColumbus Cultural Heritage Foundation: $90,000 over 1y, 30% of budgetUnion County Historical Society Inc: $63,880 over 3y, 12% of budgetRipley Main Street Association Inc: $56,530 over 2y, 17% of budgetPontotoc County Chamber of Commerce: $52,700 over 2y, 8.6% of budgetBooneville Main Street Association: $36,268 over 2y, 13% of budgetYoknapatawpha Arts Council Inc: $29,567 over 2y, 2.0% of budgetNew Albany Main Street Association: $24,620 over 1y, 10% of budgetTishomingo County Development Foundation: $23,687 over 2y, 6.3% of budgetMississippi Presenters Network: $20,000 over 1y, 17% of budgetMississippi Heritage Trust: $20,000 over 1y, 5.1% of budgetThe Columns Tippah County Interpretive Center: $17,973 over 1y, 57% of budgetRosa Foundation: $14,852 over 1y, 13% of budgetBrices Crossroads Battlefield Comm: $10,050 over 1y, 9.3% of budgetFriends of the Siege and Battle of Corinth Inc: $10,000 over 1y, 6.2% of budgetHolly Springs Main Street Association Incorporated: $9,325 over 1y, 22% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 16.

Nonprofits that may fit its grantmaking

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.

Mississippi Humanitie…Amazonsmile Foundation
Mississippi Humanities Council IncMS19.8× affinity7 shared granteesties to 1 of 1Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Mississippi Humanities Council Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation

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.

Compare Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance with peer funders

About Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance

How much does Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance give?
Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance reported 12 itemized grants totaling $387,407, out of $407,191 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 3 and 8 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.
What does Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (60%), Community Improvement (24%), Recreation & Sports (3%).
Who are Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Mississippi Main Street Association Inc ($150k), University of Mississippi ($138k), Columbus Cultural Heritage Foundation ($90k).
Does Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance fund new organizations?
In FY2024, 29% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Which funders back the same organizations as Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Mississippi Humanities Council Inc, Amazonsmile Foundation.
Where is Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance based?
Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance is based in MS.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 32 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Mississippi Hills Heritage Area Alliance’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