· Private foundation
Oshman 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 $10k4 grants · $14k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $20k
- $250k+1 grant · $473k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE ORANGE SHOW FOUNDATION | $473,000 |
| METHODIST HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| HOLOCAUST MUSEUM HOUSTON | $10,000 |
| STAGES REPERTORY THEATER | $5,000 |
| CHRISTMAS BAY FOUNDATION | $3,500 |
| SUSAN SMITH BLACKBURN PRIZE | $2,500 |
| AMERICAN VISIONARY ARTS MUSEUM | $2,500 |
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 (FY20–22, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 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.
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.
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 +68% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
16 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 13 since wound down; 4 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $20k 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
- TOThe Orange Show Foundation5× · 2020–2024 · $1.0M · revenue +353%
- BCBaylor College of Medicine3× · 2020–2022 · $35k · revenue +47%
- HPHouston Parks Board3× · 2021–2023 · $30k · revenue +92%
Funded once
- ISINTERNATIONAL SCULPTURE CENTER INCone grant, 2020 · $5k · revenue -18%
- OMOGDEN MUSEUMone grant, 2021 · $3k
- MOMUSEUM OF FINE ARTSone grant, 2020 · $3k
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.
The mission of the Houston Museum of Natural Science shall be to preserve and advance the general knowledge of natural science; to enhance in individuals the knowledge of and delight in natural science and related subjects; and to maintain…
The museum of fine arts, houston serves as a welcoming and inclusive place for all people, connecting the communities of houston with diverse histories of art spanning 6,000 years and six continents. through our permanent collections,…
The Heritage Society (THS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1954 whose mission is to tell the stories of the diverse history of Houston and Texas through collections, exhibits, the arts, educational programs, film, video, and other…
Plant, protect and promote trees all over the greater Houston area.
Houston Center for Photography (HCP) strives to encourage artists, build audiences, stimulate dialogue, and promote inquiry about photography and related media through education, exhibitions, publications, fellowship programs, and…
Art Colony Association provides art experiences and education for the greater Houston community by bringing diverse artists to urban Bayou City Art Festivals and supporting local non-profit organizations.
The Health Museum is an innovative science center that provides an interactive and entertaining experience for all ages, promotes understanding and appreciation of the human body, mind, and spirit, and inspires a lifelong commitment to…
The Houston Local Information Initiative, Inc. provides public service journalism that reflects the civic needs of the diverse communities comprising Greater Houston.
The Museum brings together the arts with history, science, & activism to tell stories about the unequal effects of environmental change in order to inspire action on the climate crisis.
To completely restore Houston Freedmen's Town as a heritage district that provides America with its only Freedmen's Town.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Houston Arts Alliance and the most unlike its peers is Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 47 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
33 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. 33 of the 46 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 The Orange Show Foundation ↗
- Who funds Menil Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds Baylor College of Medicine ↗
- Who funds Houston Parks Board ↗
- Who funds Discovery Green Conservancy ↗
- Who funds HOLOCAUST MUSEUM HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds THE METHODIST HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HOUSTON CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY CRAFT ↗
- Who funds William Marsh Rice University ↗
- Who funds Contemporary Arts Museum Houston ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL SCULPTURE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds ART LEAGUE OF HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE ↗
- Who funds Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Inc ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN VISIONARY ART MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds Houston Botanic Garden ↗
- Who funds INPRINT INC ↗
- Who funds The Houston Audubon Society ↗
- Who funds Houston Arts Alliance ↗
- Who funds Hermann Park Conservancy ↗
- Who funds GUIDE DOGS FOR THE BLIND INC ↗
- Who funds RIVERSIDE ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds Houston Grand Opera Association Inc ↗
- Who funds Glasstire ↗
- Who funds Fotofest Inc ↗
- Who funds Project Row Houses ↗
- Who funds HOUSTON WILDERNESS INC ↗
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: The Brown Foundation Inc · Houston Endowment Inc · Greater Houston Community Foundation · John P McGovern Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · The Powell Foundation · Houston Arts Alliance · Kinder Foundation · The Wortham Foundation Inc · The Susan Vaughan Foundation Inc · The Elkins Foundation · Union Pacific 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 Oshman 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.
- The American Visionary Art Museum Inc — 6% 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 Oshman Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Oshman 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.