· Private foundation
O'Donnell Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k2 grants · $40k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $300k
- $250k+29 grants · $187M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DALLAS COLLEGE FOUNDATION | $38,350,000 |
| SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY | $25,300,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER AT DALLAS | $17,251,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS AT DALLAS | $17,000,000 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS | $15,500,000 |
| DALLAS SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION | $12,930,022 |
| THE COMMIT PARTNERSHIP | $10,900,000 |
| DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART | $10,001,000 |
| PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE AND SCIENCE | $10,000,000 |
| SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL FOUNDATION | $5,000,000 |
| DALLAS ZOO | $4,000,000 |
| AT & T PERFORMING ARTS CENTER | $3,000,000 |
| HOUSING FORWARD | $2,000,000 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN | $2,000,000 |
| CHURCH OF THE INCARNATION | $1,064,873 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY25–25, $2.0M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +27% since the first grant, against -1% for the ones you funded once.
11 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2025, 1 since wound down; 22 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 48% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $97M 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
Southern Methodist University3× · 2023–2025 · $46M · revenue +14%- DSDALLAS SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION6× · 2020–2025 · $32M · revenue +27% · 27% of their budget
- DMDallas Museum of Art4× · 2020–2025 · $11M · revenue +282%
Funded once
- UEUPLIFT EDUCATIONone grant, 2024 · $1.0M · revenue -1%
- TTTEXAS TREES FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $300k · revenue +97%
- TUTHE UNIVERSITY OF TEXASone grant, 2023 · $85k
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 generate superior long-term investment returns to support The University of Texas and Texas A&M University systems as they provide world-class teaching, push the boundaries of discovery, and achieve excellence in patient healthcare for…
As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.
The Progress Texas Institute provides research and strategic communications on issues with the ultimate goal of increasing civic engagement.
The witte museum inspires people to shape the future of texas through transformative and relevant experiences in nature, science and culture.
The mission of the dallas county medical society is to promote public health and advocate for physicians and their relationship with patients, while upholding professionalism in the practice of medicine.
Downtown Dallas, Inc. (DDI), is the champion of a clean and safe Downtown and of the economic development and vibrancy of this community of diverse, unique neighborhoods. DDI: Mobilizes and amplifies the services of public agencies.…
To lead and serve in the moments that matter the most for the people of dallas.
The mission of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council is to drive evidence-based improvement in patient care and health equity throughout the region.
Using Shakespeare's works as a cornerstone, Shakespeare Dallas serves the Southwest region with fun and accessible indoor and outdoor theatre, integrated school programs, and cultural enrichment for people of all ages and backgrounds.
Our mission is that by 2040, at least half of all 25 to 34 year old residents of Dallas County, irrespective of race, will earn a living wage. Together, we cultivate a collaborative educational ecosystem with school systems, higher…
Dallas contemporary presents art in a forum that cultivates artists, ignites learning and inspires the community. dallas contemporary is a non-collecting art museum presenting new and challenging ideas from regional, national and…
The texas medical association (tma), the nation's largest and one of the oldest state medical societies, represents over 59,000 physicians and medical students dedicated to enhancing the health of all texans. in collaboration with 110…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Way of Metropolitan Dallas Inc and the most unlike its peers is Big Thought. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 39 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 26% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 18% of the field you don’t fund.
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.
28 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. 28 of the 40 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 Southern Methodist University ↗
- Who funds DALLAS COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds DALLAS SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Dallas Museum of Art ↗
- Who funds PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds The Dallas Opera ↗
- Who funds TEXAS ACADEMY OF MEDICINE ENGINEERING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ↗
- Who funds HOUSING FORWARD ↗
- Who funds MEADOWS MENTAL HEALTH POLICY INSTITUTE FOR TEXAS ↗
- Who funds Trinity Park Conservancy ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF METROPOLITAN DALLAS INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF ABILENE ↗
- Who funds Texas 2036 ↗
- Who funds UPLIFT EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds Teach for America Inc ↗
- Who funds Woodall Rodgers Park Foundation ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN GATEWAY PUBLIC GREEN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PARKLAND FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE LAMPLIGHTER SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds UNITED TO LEARN ↗
- Who funds BIG THOUGHT ↗
- Who funds TEXAS TREES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE DALLAS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Circuit Trail Conservancy ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL MATH & SCIENCE INITIATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL OF DALLAS/FORT WORTH ↗
- Who funds NORTH TEXAS BUSINESS COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS DBA BUSINESS COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS ↗
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: Texas Instruments Foundation · The Addy Foundation · Meadows Foundation Inc · The Eugene McDermott Foundation · Communities Foundation of Texas Inc · The Dallas Foundation · Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation · Hirsch Family Foundation · Boone Family Foundation · George & Fay Young Foundation Inc · The Moody Foundation · The Rose 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 O'Donnell 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.
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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to O'Donnell Foundation?
Find your warmest path to O'Donnell Foundation 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.