· Public charity
Montana Shares Inc
A partnership of nonprofit groups devoted to improving the quality of life throughout Montana.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 4 grants below total $56,302 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $127,600 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $71,298 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 · FY2024
- Under $10k2 grants · $12k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $44k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LEWIS & CLARK HUMANE SOCIETY | $28,289 |
| MONTANA SHARES | $15,732 |
| MONTANA FOOD BANK NETWORK | $6,828 |
| MONTANA FREE PRESS | $5,453 |
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 (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% 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.
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.
11 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 8 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5k 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
- LALEWIS AND CLARK HUMANE SOCIETY7× · 2017–2024 · $228k · revenue +62%
- MFMONTANA FOOD BANK NETWORK INC7× · 2017–2024 · $114k · revenue +112%
- NMNAMI MONTANA5× · 2018–2022 · $33k · revenue +133%
Funded once
- GFGREAT FALLS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $8k · revenue +63%
- MWMONTANA WILDLIFE FEDERATIONgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $6k · revenue +52%
- BABoys and Girls Club of Missoula Countygraduatedone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue +235%
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 serve its members as an advocate for the medical profession, quality patient care and the health of all montana citizens.
To collectively serve as a catalyst for engagement and bonding of people to our wildlife and public lands in montana through a sense of place, education, access, research and stewardship.
The mission of the montana land reliance (mlr) is to partner with landowners to provide permanent protection for private lands that are significant for agricultural production, fish and wildlife habitat, and open space.
The montana state parks foundation raises private support to enhance the visitors experience and build advocates for montanas state parks and recreation heritage.
Wild montana action fund builds the political power necessary for protecting and conserving public lands and wild places across the state by elevating the voices of montanans who cherish our outdoor way of life.
To heighten the public's awareness of conservation districts and their activities as well as to promote soil and water conservation.
To promote public policy solutions that provide increased access to economic opportunities, greater individual freedoms and encourage greater participation in public matters by providing research and recommendation on public policy
The mission is to protect and care for homeless animals in the Dillon and Beaverhead county area.
To advance responsible tax, budget, and economic policies through credible research and analysis in order to promote opportunity and fairness for all Montanans.
To create and sustain an optimal business climate, business prosperity and a strong montana economy through advocacy, education and collaboration, working to provide an empowered and educated workforce, reduce business growth obstacles,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Montana Legal Services Association and the most unlike its peers is Boys and Girls Club of Missoula County. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
17 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. 17 of the 18 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 LEWIS AND CLARK HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds MONTANA SHARES INC ↗
- Who funds MONTANA FOOD BANK NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds NAMI MONTANA ↗
- Who funds ANIMEALS ↗
- Who funds MONTANA WILDERNESS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds CHILDRENS ONCOLOGY CAMP FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MONTANA SPAY-NEUTER TASK FORCE ↗
- Who funds HEART OF THE VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF CENTRAL MONTANA ↗
- Who funds GREAT FALLS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds The Pride Foundation ↗
- Who funds MONTANA WILDLIFE FEDERATION ↗
- Who funds MONTANA FREE PRESS ↗
- Who funds Boys and Girls Club of Missoula County ↗
- Who funds MONTANA LEGAL SERVICES ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds DISABILITY RIGHTS MONTANA ↗
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: First Interstate BancSystem Foundation Inc · Town Pump Charitable Foundation · Montana Community Foundation Inc · Sample Foundation Inc · The Kendeda Fund · Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation · M J Murdock Charitable Trust · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Network for Good · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc
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 Shares Inc 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.