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Foundation DossiersMostly funded, not a grantmaker — see who funds it →
Plinth

· Public charity

Montana History Foundation

Provide development and advisory leadership for organizations dedicated to the preservation of montana's history and culture.

$92k
Granted FY2025still arriving
9
Grants FY2025still arriving
1
States reached
$10k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your edgeRead
04Your fieldRead
01What you fund
01100% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2025.

Arts & Culture$935kEducation$15kScience & Tech$10kCommunity Improvement$8kEnvironment$8k
02FY2025 · 9 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

The 9 grants below total $86,500 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $91,500 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $5,000 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k2 grants · $17k
  • $10k–50k7 grants · $70k
$10,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$10M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
CITY OF SHELBY$10,000
HERITAGE & CULTURAL FOUNDATION OF GARFIELD COUNTY$10,000
WOLF POINT AREA MUSEUM$10,000
TREASURE COUNTY 89ER'S MUSEUM$10,000
CONRAD PUBLIC LIBRARY$10,000
NINEPIPES MUSEUM OF EARLY MONTANA$10,000
CARTER COUNTY GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY$10,000
GEORGE MCCONE COUNTY LIBRARY$9,000
POWDER RIVER HISTORICAL SOCIETY$7,500
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY20–20, $6k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%NINE MILE COMMUNITY CENTER: $6k → 9%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

33%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$320k · 15 repeat orgs$646k to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +21% since the first grant, against +4% for the ones you funded once.

15 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2025, 12 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

15
72

Total granted

$320k
$590k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+21%
+4%

Still filing today

87%
50%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 35% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $57k went to new ones.

50%100%’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
Arts & CultureCommunity ImprovementEducationEnvironmentRecreation & SportsHuman ServicesOther

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

  • CC
    CARTER COUNTY GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY
    4× · 2021–2025 · $37k · revenue +439%
  • NM
    NINEPIPES MUSEUM OF EARLY MONTANA
    4× · 2021–2025 · $32k · revenue +62%
  • FB
    FORT BENTON COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION
    3× · 2019–2024 · $31k · revenue +21%

Funded once

  • TU
    THE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA FOUNDATION
    one grant, 2022 · $16k · revenue +3%
  • TC
    THE CITY-COUNTY OF BUTTE-SILVER BOW MT
    one grant, 2024 · $16k
  • RC
    Reese Creek Community Center
    one grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue -66%

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

1
Boundary County Historical Society Inc

Museum

Arts & Culture
2
Scenic Montana Trails
—
3
Blaine County Wildlife Museum Foundation

To establish and operate the blaine county wildlife museum with the intent to provide quality wildlife museum exhibiting montana wildlife in their natural habitats, complete with audio and visual enhancement.

Arts & Culture
4
Chelan County Historical Society

Developed by, for, and in conjunction with the community, the cashmere museum and pioneer village seeks to engage, educate, and entertain visitors both local and international. hundreds of volunteers have worked thousands of hours to make…

Arts & Culture
5
Montana Conservation Elders
Environment
6
The Shoshone Museum Association

To preserve, interpret, and display local and natural history for education purposes.

—
7
Museum of the Plains

The purposeof the museum of the plains is to preserve significant objects of the past. the museum fo the plains is an encyclopedic history museum established to bring about a better understanding and appreciation by the community and…

Arts & Culture
8
Rainier Oregon Historical Museum

Preserving the past via a local museum.

Arts & Culture
9
Black Rock Historical Society
Arts & Culture
10
Wasco Co Historical Museum
Arts & Culture
11
Stillwater Historical Society

To record and preserve the history and artifacts of Stillwater County and the vicinity. To build, maintain and operate a local museum to house and display a collection of such artifacts and memorabilia deemed to be unique to our area and…

—
12
Butte Valley Museum & Historical Society

To preserve, display & interpret local history.

Unclassified

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Western Heritage Center and the most unlike its peers is Evelyn Cameron Heritage Inc Evelyn Cameron Foundation. 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 30 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number19%2%<5yr12%10%5–10yr20%16%10–20yr16%35%20–35yr18%28%35–55yr14%9%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value19%1%<5yr12%10%5–10yr20%15%10–20yr16%36%20–35yr18%24%35–55yr14%14%55yr+

The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 9% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
2%2/93
the rest of the field
9%
614/6,840

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.

04the grantee network

56 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. 56 of the 94 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.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
18
Early backer (in before they grew)
51/56
Grantees still filing
34/56
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

CARTER COUNTY GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY — $36,750 · OtherCARTER COUNTY GEOLOGICAL SOCIETYDEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES — $25,000 · OtherTREASURE COUNTY 89 ERS INC — $20,000 · Other+50 more — $428,886 · Other+50 moreNINEPIPES MUSEUM OF EARLY MONTANA — $31,500 · Arts & CultureNINEPIPES MUSEUM OF EARLY MONTAN…EXTREME HISTORY PROJECT — $30,500 · Arts & CultureEXTREME HISTORY PROJECTMISSOULA ART MUSEUM — $20,000 · Arts & CultureMISSOULA ART MUSEUMBuses Of Yellowstone Preservation Trust Incorporated — $20,000 · Arts & CultureBuses Of Yellowstone Preservatio…CASCADE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY — $16,540 · Arts & CultureCASCADE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIET…YELLOWSTONE COUNTY MUSEUM FOUNDATION — $13,500 · Arts & CultureOLD TRAIL MUSEUM — $13,000 · Arts & CultureMAI WAH SOCIETY INC — $10,000 · Arts & CultureCROW LANGUAGE CONSORTIUM INC — $10,000 · Arts & CultureThe Paradise Center — $10,000 · Arts & CultureMISSION VALLEY FRIENDS OF THE ARTS — $10,000 · Arts & CultureBIGFORK ART AND CULTURAL CENTER — $10,000 · Arts & Culture+12 more — $82,900 · Arts & Culture+12 moreFORT BENTON COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION — $31,084 · Community ImprovementFORT BENT…Reese Creek Community Center — $10,000 · Community ImprovementReese Cre…GREATER GARDINER COMMUNITY COUNCIL — $10,000 · Community ImprovementGREATER G…SNOWY MOUNTAIN DEVELOPMENT CORP — $8,700 · Community ImprovementSNOWY MOU…BEAR PAW DEVELOPMENT CORP — $8,400 · Community ImprovementBEAR PAW …NORTH-MISSOULA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION — $8,000 · Community ImprovementNORTH-MIS…PETROLEUM COUNTY COMMUNITY CENTER INC — $5,600 · Community ImprovementPETROLEUM…THE MONTANA DINOSAUR CENTER — $19,400 · EducationTHE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA FOUNDATION — $16,000 · EducationMILES CITY CONVENT KEEPERS — $10,000 · EducationARCHIE BRAY FOUNDATION — $10,000 · EducationMISSOULA PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION — $5,000 · EducationSALISH KOOTENAI COLLEGE INC — $5,000 · EducationYELLOWSTONE RIVER PARKS ASSOCIATION — $9,600 · EnvironmentMONTANA WILDERNESS ASSOCIATION — $8,000 · EnvironmentMONTANA STATE PARKS FOUNDATION — $12,300 · Recreation & SportsWINNETT ACES INC — $10,000 · Food & Nutrition
Other$510,636Arts & Culture$277,940Community Improvement$81,784Education$65,400Environment$17,600Recreation & Sports$12,300Food & Nutrition$10,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetCARTER COUNTY GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY — $36,750 over 4y, 8.1% of budgetNINEPIPES MUSEUM OF EARLY MONTANA — $31,500 over 4y, 3.2% of budgetFORT BENTON COMMUNITY IMPROVEMENT ASSOCIATION — $31,084 over 3y, 5.0% of budgetEXTREME HISTORY PROJECT — $30,500 over 4y, 13% of budgetMISSOULA ART MUSEUM — $20,000 over 2y, 0.8% of budgetBuses Of Yellowstone Preservation Trust Incorporated — $20,000 over 2y, 7.5% of budgetTHE MONTANA DINOSAUR CENTER — $19,400 over 2y, 6.2% of budgetCASCADE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY — $16,540 over 2y, 3.2% of budgetTHE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA FOUNDATION — $16,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetWESTERN HERITAGE CENTER — $14,070 over 2y, 2.1% of budgetYELLOWSTONE COUNTY MUSEUM FOUNDATION — $13,500 over 2y, 3.0% of budgetOLD TRAIL MUSEUM — $13,000 over 2y, 23% of budgetMONTANA STATE PARKS FOUNDATION — $12,300 over 2y, 3.8% of budgetReese Creek Community Center — $10,000 over 1y, 23% of budgetButte Citizens for Preservation and Revitalization — $10,000 over 1y, 24% of budgetMONTANA ASSOCIATION OF STATE GRAZING DISTRICTS — $10,000 over 1y, 9.3% of budgetMILES CITY CONVENT KEEPERS — $10,000 over 1y, 4.6% of budgetWINNETT ACES INC — $10,000 over 1y, 1.6% of budgetRED LODGE AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION — $10,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetARCHIE BRAY FOUNDATION — $10,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetCROW LANGUAGE CONSORTIUM INC — $10,000 over 1y, 1.7% of budgetThe Paradise Center — $10,000 over 1y, 7.7% of budgetBIGFORK ART AND CULTURAL CENTER — $10,000 over 1y, 6.0% of budgetHELENA TELEVISION COALITION INC — $10,000 over 1y, 2.6% of budgetGREATER GARDINER COMMUNITY COUNCIL — $10,000 over 1y, 37% of budgetYELLOWSTONE RIVER PARKS ASSOCIATION — $9,600 over 1y, 1.5% of budgetYellowstone Bighorn Research Association — $9,500 over 1y, 4.4% of budgetPOWELL COUNTY MUSEUM AND ARTS FOUNDATION — $9,000 over 1y, 0.7% of budgetTHE MYRNA LOY — $9,000 over 1y, 1.0% of budgetSNOWY MOUNTAIN DEVELOPMENT CORP — $8,700 over 1y, 0.6% of budgetFRIENDS OF THE YELLOWSTONE GATEWAY MUSEUM OF PARK COUNTY INC — $8,700 over 1y, 13% of budgetSOUTHEAST MONTANA AREA REVITALIZATION TEAM — $8,400 over 1y, 4.5% of budgetBEAR PAW DEVELOPMENT CORP — $8,400 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetMONTANA WILDERNESS ASSOCIATION — $8,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetNORTH-MISSOULA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION — $8,000 over 1y, 1.1% of budgetMONTANA PRESERVATION ALLIANCE INC — $7,500 over 1y, 2.9% of budgetWORLD MUSEUM OF MINING — $7,500 over 1y, 1.1% of budgetNORTHWEST MONTANA HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC — $7,000 over 1y, 3.1% of budgetUPPER SWAN VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC — $6,900 over 1y, 14% of budgetYellowstone Historic Center Inc — $6,000 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetNINE MILE COMMUNITY CENTER — $5,800 over 1y, 22% of budgetPETROLEUM COUNTY COMMUNITY CENTER INC — $5,600 over 1y, 0.7% of budgetBIG SKY FILM INSTITUTE — $5,500 over 1y, 1.4% of budgetEVELYN CAMERON HERITAGE INC EVELYN CAMERON FOUNDATION — $5,000 over 1y, 6.2% of budgetMISSOULA PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION — $5,000 over 1y, 1.3% of budgetTRIGG - C M RUSSELL FOUNDATION INC — $5,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetSALISH KOOTENAI COLLEGE INC — $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetGALLATIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY DBA GALLATIN HISTORY MUSEUM — $5,000 over 1y, 2.7% of budget
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.

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.

Montana Community Fou…Treacy FoundationHumanities MontanaDennis & Phyllis Wash…Town Pump Charitable …First Interstate Banc…The Greater Montana F…The High Stakes Found…Whitefish Community F…M J Murdock Charitabl…Zeller-Knowles Founda…Speyer Family Foundat…
Montana Community Foundation IncMT44.2× affinity21 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Montana Community Foundation Inc · Treacy Foundation · Humanities Montana · Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation · Town Pump Charitable Foundation · First Interstate BancSystem Foundation Inc · The Greater Montana Foundation · The High Stakes Foundation · Whitefish Community Foundation Inc · M J Murdock Charitable Trust · Zeller-Knowles Foundation Inc · Speyer Family 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 Montana History 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.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%3%10%23%40%your share of their income ↑0%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    20report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    typical government reliance, FY20–25

    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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 94 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your 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. How we build these →

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

    Source object · view filing

    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 camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home
    State money flows
    the interactive map of money crossing state lines