How much does Mr & Mrs Sanford N McDonnell Foundation give?

Mr & Mrs Sanford N McDonnell Foundation reported 53 grants totaling $533,900 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 47 and 58 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Mr & Mrs Sanford N McDonnell Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Youth Development (33%), Education (24%), Arts & Culture (17%).

Who are Mr & Mrs Sanford N McDonnell Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: University of New Mexico Foundation Inc ($440k), Characterplus ($388k), Salvation Army ($146k).

Does Mr & Mrs Sanford N McDonnell Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 2% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Mr & Mrs Sanford N McDonnell Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as Mr & Mrs Sanford N McDonnell Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Centene Foundation, Employees Community Fund of the Boeing Company, St Louis Community Foundation Inc.

Where is Mr & Mrs Sanford N McDonnell Foundation based?

Mr & Mrs Sanford N McDonnell Foundation is based in MO.

Mr & Mrs Sanford N McDonnell Foundation

Mr & Mrs Sanford N McDonnell Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Mr & Mrs Sanford N McDonnell Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$534k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$100k

Largest

01What it funds

0197% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Youth Development$967kEducation$699kArts & Culture$497kHuman Services$193kHealth$117kPhilanthropy$80kReligion$78kEnvironment$37kOther$0

02FY2025 · 53 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k38 grants · $131k
$10k–50k12 grants · $181k
$50k–250k3 grants · $223k

$5,000

Median grant

States reached

$12M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
CHARACTERORG	$100,000
CHARACTERPLUS	$67,500
UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO FOUNDATION	$55,000
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-ST LOUIS	$43,500
SALVATION ARMY	$25,000
MIGHTY OAKS FOUNDATION	$17,000
OPERA THEATRE OF SAINT LOUIS	$15,000
NINE NETWORK OF PUBLIC MEDIA	$10,000
SAPPINGTON HOUSE FOUNDATION	$10,000
WINTER OPERA ST LOUIS	$10,000
TRANSFORMATIONAL PRAYER FOUNDATION	$10,000
UNION AVENUE OPERA	$10,000
MISSOURI HISTORICAL SOCIETY	$10,000
FOCUS ON THE FAMILY	$10,000
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF TRANSPORTATION	$10,000

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 (FY17–25, $33k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 48% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

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.

Which US states its grants reach

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.

$3.3M · 83 repeat orgs$152k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +56% since the first grant, against +8% for those funded once.

83 repeat relationships: 51 still active in FY2025, 32 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$3.3M

$140k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+56%

+8%

Still filing today

49%

28%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $13k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureEducationHealthHuman ServicesEnvironmentPhilanthropyOther

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

UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO FOUNDATION INC
8× · 2018–2025 · $440k · revenue +62%
C
CHARACTERPLUS
8× · 2017–2025 · $388k · revenue +367%
OT
Opera Theatre of Saint Louis
9× · 2017–2025 · $143k · revenue +150%

Funded once

UO
UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO FOUND'N
one grant, 2017 · $55k
BS
BOY SCOUTS GREATER ST LOUIS AREA COUNCIL
one grant, 2017 · $15k
SL
ST LOUIS UNIVERSITY
one grant, 2019 · $12k · revenue +9%

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.

United States Naval Institute

Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.

—

University of the Sciences in Philadelphia

University of the sciences prepares students to become leaders, innovators, and skilled practitioners in the sciences, the health professions, and related disciplines. we deliver excellence in teaching, research, and service through a safe…

—

Columbia College

Columbia college improves lives by providing quality education to both traditional and nontraditional students, helping them achieve their true potential.

Education

University of the Ozarks

True to our christian heritage, we prepare students from diverse religious, cultural, educational and economic backgrounds to live life fully.

Education

University of Maryland Surgical Associates Pa

Under the medical service plan of the university of maryland school of medicine, medical services are rendered by the members of the faculty on behalf of the school of medicine in connection with their duties to provide clinical…

Health

Furman University

The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.

Education

University of Maryland Oncology Associates Pa

Health

Loyola University

Loyola University New Orleans, a Jesuit and Catholic institution of higher education, welcomes students of diverse backgrounds and prepares them to lead meaningful lives with and for others; to pursue truth, wisdom, and virtue; and to work…

Education

University of Maryland Otorhino-Laryngology-Head & Neck Surgery Pa

Health

The St Louis Children's Choirs

Transforming lives through musical excellence. the goal of the st. louis children's choirs is to empower the youth of st. louis through a rich choral program that helps each young singer realize their full potential - as a musician and as…

—

Thomas Jefferson School

Thomas jefferson school engages its students in the education necessary to live as responsible citizens of the world. through the strongest possible college-prepatory program and within a nurturing community, students develop a…

—

University of Maryland Anesthesiology Associates Pa

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is St Louis Art Museum Foundation; the most unlike its peers is Samaritan's Purse. 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

54 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. 54 of the 114 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)

50/54

Grantees still filing

39/54

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$1,800,484Education$1,063,200Arts & Culture$364,583Health$63,000Environment$61,500Philanthropy$51,000Human Services$32,950

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.

Centene FoundationMO31.8× affinity13 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Centene Foundation · Employees Community Fund of the Boeing Company · St Louis Community Foundation Inc · Moneta Group Charitable Foundation · Edward Jones Foundation · World Wide Technology Foundation · Regional Cultural and Performing Arts Development Commission · St Louis Community Foundation · United Way of Greater St Louis Inc · Commerce Bancshares Foundation · Leon and Mary Strauss Charitable Foundation · The Kranzberg Family Charitable 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.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Mr & Mrs Sanford N McDonnell Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Mr & Mrs Sanford N McDonnell Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

15report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%

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.

Play a game based on Mr & Mrs Sanford N McDonnell’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