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Nancy Ruyle Dodge Charitable Trust at a glance

· Private foundation

Nancy Ruyle Dodge Charitable Trust

Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$39k
Granted FY2024still arriving
10
Grants FY2024still arriving
4
States reached
$8k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Arts & Culture$148kEducation$40kAnimals$18kEnvironment$16kFood & Nutrition$16k
02FY2024 · 10 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$4,000
Median grant
4
States reached
$3k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
THE AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS$8,000
DEPAUW UNIVERSITY$6,000
HISTORIC SOTTERLEY INC$5,000
KENNEDY CTR FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS$4,000
HUMANE RESCUE ALLIANCE$4,000
Individual grant recipient$2,500
COSMOS CLUB FOUNDATION$2,500
WASHINGTON CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC$2,500
SO OTHERS MAY EAT$2,500
THE WASHINGTON PERFORMING ARTS$2,250
02The need
03

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:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 76% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 9%THE AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $8k → 17%DEPAUW UNIVERSITY: $6k → 10%WASHINGTON CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC: $3k → 8%HISTORIC SOTTERLEY INC: $7k → 8%THE AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $8k → 17%THE WASHINGTON PERFORMING ARTS: $2k → 14%DEPAUW UNIVERSITY: $6k → 10%WASHINGTON CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC: $2k → 8%HISTORIC SOTTERLEY INC: $7k → 8%THE AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $8k → 17%SO OTHERS MAY EAT: $3k → 14%DEPAUW UNIVERSITY: $5k → 10%WASHINGTON CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC: $2k → 8%HISTORIC SOTTERLEY INC: $5k → 8%THE AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $5k → 17%SO OTHERS MAY EAT: $3k → 14%DEPAUW UNIVERSITY: $5k → 10%WASHINGTON CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC: $2k → 8%HISTORIC SOTTERLEY INC: $5k → 8%THE AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $5k → 17%SO OTHERS MAY EAT: $3k → 14%DEPAUW UNIVERSITY: $5k → 10%WASHINGTON CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC: $2k → 8%HISTORIC SOTTERLEY INC: $5k → 8%THE AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $4k → 17%SO OTHERS MAY EAT: $2k → 14%DEPAUW UNIVERSITY: $5k → 10%WASHINGTON CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC: $2k → 8%HISTORIC SOTTERLEY INC: $5k → 8%THE AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $4k → 17%SO OTHERS MAY EAT: $2k → 14%DEPAUW UNIVERSITY: $4k → 10%HISTORIC SOTTERLEY INC: $5k → 8%THE AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $4k → 17%SO OTHERS MAY EAT: $2k → 14%DEPAUW UNIVERSITY: $4k → 10%HISTORIC SOTTERLEY INC: $4k → 8%KENNEDY CTR FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS: $4k → 14%KENNEDY CTR FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS: $4k → 14%ENVIRONMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL: $3k → 14%ENVIRONMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL: $3k → 14%THE WASHINGTON PERFORMING ARTS SOC: $2k → 14%ENVIRONMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL: $3k → 14%THE WASHINGTON PERFORMING ARTS SOC: $2k → 14%ENVIRONMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL: $3k → 14%COSMOS CLUB FOUNDATION: $3k → 14%HUMANE RESCUE ALLIANCE: $4k → 14%HUMANE RESCUE ALLIANCE: $4k → 14%0%20%40%50%more need →
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.
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.

99%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$235k · 10 repeat orgs$3k to everyone else

10 repeat relationships: 9 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

10
1

Total granted

$235k
$500

Still filing today

70%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
Arts & CultureEducationAnimalsOther
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

  • AG
    AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS
    8× · 2017–2024 · $45k · revenue +74%
  • HS
    HISTORIC SOTTERLEY INC
    8× · 2017–2024 · $41k · revenue +148%
  • DePauw University
    8× · 2017–2024 · $40k · revenue +43%

Funded once

  • ZA
    ZIMMERLI ART MUSEUM
    one grant, 2021 · $500
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
04the grantee network

7 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. 7 of the 12 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
3
Early backer (in before they grew)
7/7
Grantees still filing
6/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $45,000 · OtherAMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTSHISTORIC SOTTERLEY INC: $41,000 · OtherHISTORIC SOTTERLEY INCIndividual grant recipient: $16,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientSO OTHERS MAY EAT: $15,500 · OtherSO OTHERS MAY EATTHE WASHINGTON PERFORMING ARTS SOC: $12,250 · OtherTHE WASHINGTON PERFORMING ARTS SOC+2 more: $2,750 · OtherJOHN F KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS: $17,600 · Arts & CultureJOHN F KENNEDY CENTER …COSMOS CLUB FOUNDATION: $15,000 · Arts & CultureCOSMOS CLUB FOUNDATIONTHE WASHINGTON CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC: $14,500 · Arts & CultureTHE WASHINGTON CONSERV…DePauw University: $40,000 · EducationDePauw UniversityWASHINGTON HUMANE SOCIETY: $18,000 · Animals
Other$132,500Arts & Culture$47,100Education$40,000Animals$18,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetAMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $45,000 over 8y, 0.5% of budgetHISTORIC SOTTERLEY INC: $41,000 over 8y, 0.9% of budgetDePauw University: $40,000 over 8y, 0.0% of budgetWASHINGTON HUMANE SOCIETY: $18,000 over 8y, 0.0% of budgetJOHN F KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS: $17,600 over 8y, 0.0% of budgetCOSMOS CLUB FOUNDATION: $15,000 over 8y, 2.6% of budgetTHE WASHINGTON CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC: $14,500 over 8y, 0.3% of budget
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.

  • Who funds AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS ↗
  • Who funds HISTORIC SOTTERLEY INC ↗
  • Who funds DePauw University ↗
  • Who funds WASHINGTON HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
  • Who funds JOHN F KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS ↗
  • Who funds COSMOS CLUB FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds THE WASHINGTON CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC ↗

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 set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.

Fidelity Investments …
Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift FundMA6× affinity4 shared granteesties to 0 of 0Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund

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 Nancy Ruyle Dodge Charitable Trust funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Nancy Ruyle Dodge Charitable Trust. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from government →median 28%
  • Historic Sotterley Inc: 28% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
1report 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
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.
05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Nancy Ruyle Dodge Charitable Trust?

Find your warmest path to Nancy Ruyle Dodge Charitable Trust 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.

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 12 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-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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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