· Private foundation
Once Upon a Time Foundation
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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k939 grants · $585k
- $10k–50k50 grants · $1.0M
- $50k–250k42 grants · $3.7M
- $250k+8 grants · $5.4M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UT SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER | $2,500,000 |
| FORT WORTH ZOO | $1,000,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO | $410,949 |
| CHILDREN'S NATIONAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE | $366,667 |
| UT SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER | $320,000 |
| TEXAS HEALTH RESOURCES (HARRIS METHODIST FOUNDATION) | $275,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL | $250,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL | $250,000 |
| JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY | $225,000 |
| TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL | $200,000 |
| VANGUARD CHARITABLE | $200,000 |
| THE GENESIS FOUNDATION | $155,000 |
| DUKE UNIVERSITY | $151,227 |
| VANGUARD CHARITABLE | $150,000 |
| CHILDREN'S NATIONAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE | $133,760 |
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 (FY20–24, $457k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 94% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 7% of Once Upon a Time Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +15% for the ones you funded once.
156 repeat relationships — 109 still active in FY2024, 47 since wound down; 320 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, 67% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3.3M 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
- MUMarquette University5× · 2020–2024 · $1.3M · revenue +24%
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY5× · 2020–2024 · $875k · revenue +42%- TCTEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY5× · 2020–2024 · $651k · revenue +40%
Funded once
- NHNYC HEALTH HOSPITALS BELLEVUEone grant, 2023 · $1.0M
- GSGENOX SOLUTION CHILE SPAone grant, 2022 · $657k
- HMHARRIS METHODIST FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $200k
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.
Building a movement of diverse, upwardly mobile college grads overcoming underemployment through digital skills and peer connections.
As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.
Mission: together we advance the quality of life for people with disabilities. vision: people of all abilities thrive in the world. values: impact- generate solutions that make a difference. choice - create opportunities for people to lead…
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
Actionaid is an international network building a just, equitable, and sustainable world in solidarity with communities on the frontlines of poverty and injustice. actionaid usa is the u.s. branch of actionaid international, which works in…
Common impact's mission is to strengthen the capacity of social change organizations, enabling them to better run and scale their programs. through its partnership with companies, common impact taps into the business skills and expertise…
To provide multi-specialty surgical care, humanitarian aid and educational support to people in low- and middle-income countries.
Pact is a nonprofit organization that builds evidence-based, data-driven, and community-led solutions for human development (continued in schedule o)
Alternatives, inc.'s mission is to facilitate personal development,strengthen family relationships and enhance the community's well being. serving over 3,000 youth and families annually, the organization offers a range of counseling and…
Devworks international is dedicated to a society where all people enjoy the freedom to pursue their own sustainable development. we contribute to this by strengthening the capacity of local organizations.
Community information now (cinow) provides data, tools, analysis, and training to inform decisions to improve texas communities. cinow's vision is improved lives and decreased disparities through democratized data.
Empowering families and individuals experiencing homelessness to build a future filled with dignity, opportunity, and lasting solutions.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Families Forward and the most unlike its peers is Defying Legal Gravity. 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 27 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) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
523 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. 523 of the 911 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 VANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds Marquette University ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA ↗
- Who funds JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds New York University ↗
- Who funds Vanderbilt University ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds The Anderson Foundation ↗
- Who funds THE MOUNT SINAI HOSPITAL ↗
- Who funds TRI-CITIES FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds BAYLOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds University of Notre Dame du Lac ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK ↗
- Who funds Texas Children's Hospital ↗
- Who funds Emory University ↗
- Who funds DUKE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY ↗
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: Thomas M Helen McKee & John P Ryan Fo John P Ryan Foundation Inc · Sid W Richardson Foundation · Amon G Carter Foundation · Community Foundation of North Texas (Tax · The Morris Foundation · Rainwater Charitable Foundation · The Roach Foundation Inc · Garvey Texas Foundation Inc · Amon G Carter-Star Tele Emply Fund · The Rees-Jones Foundation · Paul E Andrews Jr Foundation · Mary Potishman Lard Trust Walker C Friedman Co Trustee
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 Once Upon a Time 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.
- Reach Inc — 85% of income from government
- Bridge Over Troubled Waters Inc — 32% of income from government
- Xerces Society Inc — 22% of income from government
- The Coral Restoration Foundation Inc — 16% of income from government
- Trustees of Boston University — 12% of income from government
- Johns Hopkins University — 12% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- Northeastern University — 7% of income from government
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc — 7% of income from government
- Breaktime United Inc — 1% of income from government
- Comfort Cases Inc — 0% of income from government
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% of income from government
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 Once Upon a Time Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Once Upon a Time 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.