· Private foundation
Paul Milan and Cynthia Long Foster Foundation
Its FY2025 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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 80% of Paul Milan and Cynthia Long Foster Foundation’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k11 grants · $52k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $110k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Great Falls Community Food Bank | $20,000 |
| Family Promise of GF | $15,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $15,000 |
| Education Foundation for Billings Public Schools | $10,000 |
| Tumbleweed | $10,000 |
| Boys and Girls Club of Cascade County | $10,000 |
| District 4 HRDC - Havre Food Bank | $10,000 |
| YWCA Billings | $10,000 |
| MSUB Foundation | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $7,500 |
| Lopez Island Family Resource Center | $7,500 |
| Montana Historical Society | $5,000 |
| Art House | $5,000 |
| Montana BioScience Alliance | $5,000 |
| Montana Free Press | $5,000 |
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 (FY19–25, $51k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 2% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
18 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 13 since wound down; 15 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, 29% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $116k 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
- COCASA OF CASCADE COUNTY7× · 2018–2024 · $14k · revenue +49%
- CCCLARK COUNTY FOOD BANK3× · 2021–2023 · $13k · revenue +57%
- BTBILLINGS TRAILNET6× · 2017–2022 · $12k · revenue +71%
Funded once
- WWWise Wonders Museumone grant, 2020 · $2k
- EAExplorers Academyone grant, 2020 · $2k
- BPBILLINGS PUBLIC SCHOOLSone grant, 2021 · $2k
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.
Our mission: to end hunger in montana through food acquisition and distribution, education, and advocacy. we are the only statewide hunger organization, providing emergency food and increasing food access among needy children, seniors and…
Provide food for individuals in need
To advance responsible tax, budget, and economic policies through credible research and analysis in order to promote opportunity and fairness for all Montanans.
To create and sustain an optimal business climate, business prosperity and a strong montana economy through advocacy, education and collaboration, working to provide an empowered and educated workforce, reduce business growth obstacles,…
The Flathead Food Bank strives to elimnate hunger in the Flathead Valley through collaborative partnerships creating effective solutions to connect and strengthen individuals, families and the community through access to healthy nutritious…
To enhance community vitality by inspiring community giving and strengthening nonprofits
The montana state parks foundation raises private support to enhance the visitors experience and build advocates for montanas state parks and recreation heritage.
The mblc exists to encourage and enact business-friendly policies that create good-paying jobs and make montana a better place to live. the primary purpose of the mblc is to educate the public on important business issues, enable citizens…
The mission of the montana farm bureau foundation (mfbfo) is to support montana agriculture through education, research, and community support, with a special emphasis for the development of our youth.
Land to hand's mission is to build a strong community food system that fosters socially just ways of accessing food. we accomplish this mission through our food access and education programs.
To build upon the economic base in flathead county by assisting business startups and expansion activities with resources and valuable connections. montana west delivers local business economic development services targeted to impact job…
The mission of the montana land reliance (mlr) is to partner with landowners to provide permanent protection for private lands that are significant for agricultural production, fish and wildlife habitat, and open space.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (See) Inc and the most unlike its peers is Montana Bioscience Alliance. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
18 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. 18 of the 42 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 TUMBLEWEED RUNAWAY PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds GREAT FALLS COMMUNITY FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds CASA OF CASCADE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds CLARK COUNTY FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds BILLINGS TRAILNET ↗
- Who funds LOPEZ ISLAND FAMILY RESOURCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds EDUCATION FOUNDATION FOR BILLINGS PUBLIC SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF CASCADE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENTREPRENEURS (SEE) INC ↗
- Who funds FOOD IN NEED OF DISTRIBUTION INC ↗
- Who funds SMART READING ↗
- Who funds MONTANA FREE PRESS ↗
- Who funds Montana Bioscience Alliance ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF COACHELLA VALLEY ↗
- Who funds Holocaust Center For Humanity ↗
- Who funds LOCAL MEDIA FOUNDATION ↗
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: First Interstate BancSystem Foundation Inc · Town Pump Charitable Foundation · Montana Community Foundation Inc · Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation · M J Murdock Charitable Trust · The Albertsons Companies Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc
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 Paul Milan and Cynthia Long Foster 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.
- Smart Reading — 3% 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 Paul Milan and Cynthia Long Foster Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Paul Milan and Cynthia Long Foster 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.