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Robert J Potter Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Robert J Potter 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.

$44k
Granted FY2025still arriving
11
Grants FY2025still arriving
4
States reached
$20k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
0185% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Arts & Culture$86kHealth$37kEducation$36kReligion$16kInternational$3kHuman Services$3kYouth Development$504Environment$353Other$0
02FY2025 · 11 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k9 grants · $14k
  • $10k–50k2 grants · $30k
$1,700
Median grant
4
States reached
$92k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
UTSW MEDICAL CENTER$20,000
Individual grant recipient$10,000
M D ANDERSON$5,000
TEMPLE SHALOM$2,204
LAFAYETTE COLLEGE$2,000
TITAS$1,700
FRENCH HERITAGE SOCIETY$1,000
WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL$1,000
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS$500
KIMBELL ART MUSEUM$75
ALZHEIMER'S ASSOCIATION$50
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 (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 9%LAFAYETTE COLLEGE: $3k → 11%U OF ROCHESTER: $3k → 14%FRENCH HERITAGE SOCIETY: $5k → 17%MDANDERSON CANCER CENTER: $5k → 16%BERNIES BOOK BANK: $504 → 8%LAFAYETTE COLLEGE: $2k → 11%U OF ROCHESTER: $2k → 14%FRENCH HERITAGE SOCIETY: $3k → 17%DALLAS METHODIST HOSPITAL FOUNDATIO: $500 → 14%MDANDERSON CANCER CENTER: $5k → 16%LAFAYETTE COLLEGE: $2k → 11%U OF ROCHESTER: $2k → 14%FRENCH HERITAGE SOCIETY: $1k → 17%M D ANDERSON: $5k → 16%LAFAYETTE COLLEGE: $1k → 11%FRENCH HERITAGE SOCIETY: $970 → 17%MD ANDERSON CANCER CENTER: $5k → 16%LAFAYETTE COLLEGE: $1k → 11%M D ANDERSON: $5k → 16%UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS: $11k → 14%UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS: $10k → 14%UT DALLAS: $8k → 14%UT DALLAS: $5k → 14%UT DALLAS: $2k → 14%TEMPLE SHALOM: $3k → 14%TEMPLE SHALOM: $3k → 14%TEMPLE SHALOM: $3k → 14%TEMPLE SHALOM: $3k → 14%TEMPLE SHALOM: $2k → 14%TEMPLE SHALOM: $2k → 14%UTSW MEDICAL CENTER: $20k → 14%UTSW MEDICAL FDN: $20k → 14%UTSW MEDICAL FDN: $20k → 14%UTSW MEDICAL FDN: $10k → 14%UTSW MEDICAL FDN: $10k → 14%HEALING HEARTS AND HANDS: $1k → 14%TITAS: $3k → 14%PEROT MUSEUM: $3k → 14%PEROT MUSEUM: $3k → 14%PEROT MUSEUM: $3k → 14%PEROT MUSEUM: $3k → 14%DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA: $3k → 14%TITAS: $2k → 14%TITAS: $2k → 14%WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL: $1k → 14%WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL: $1k → 14%WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL: $1k → 14%CRYSTAL CHARITY BALL: $3k → 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.

90%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$239k · 16 repeat orgs$28k to everyone else

16 repeat relationships: 10 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

16
9

Total granted

$239k
$8k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+29%
+60%

Still filing today

19%
44%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 54% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $20k went to new ones.

50%100%’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’20’21’22’23’24’25
EducationYouth DevelopmentInternationalPhilanthropyArts & CultureOther
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

  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    4× · 2020–2024 · $60k
  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    4× · 2020–2025 · $55k
  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS
    3× · 2023–2025 · $22k

Funded once

  • DS
    DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
    one grant, 2020 · $3k
  • TC
    THE CRYSTAL CHARITY BALL
    one grant, 2022 · $3k · revenue +13%
  • HH
    HEALING HEARTS AND HANDS
    one grant, 2024 · $1k
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 26 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)
1
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

Individual grant recipient: $60,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientIndividual grant recipient: $55,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientUNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS: $21,500 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLASUTSW MEDICAL CENTER: $20,000 · OtherUTSW MEDICAL CENTERTEMPLE SHALOM: $16,223 · OtherTEMPLE SHALOMIndividual grant recipient: $15,250 · OtherIndividual grant recipientMDANDERSON CANCER CENTER: $15,000 · OtherMDANDERSON CANCER CENTERM D ANDERSON: $10,000 · OtherPEROT MUSEUM: $10,000 · Other+12 more: $22,328 · Other+12 moreFRENCH HERITAGE SOCIETY INC: $10,220 · InternationalLAFAYETTE COLLEGE: $8,500 · EducationTHE CRYSTAL CHARITY BALL: $2,500 · PhilanthropyBERNIE'S BOOK BANK: $504 · Youth DevelopmentDallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum: $135 · Arts & Culture
Other$245,301International$10,220Education$8,500Philanthropy$2,500Youth Development$504Arts & Culture$135

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 budgetFRENCH HERITAGE SOCIETY INC: $10,220 over 4y, 0.3% of budgetLAFAYETTE COLLEGE: $8,500 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetTEXAS INTERNATIONAL THEATRICAL ARTS SOCIETY: $5,900 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetTHE CRYSTAL CHARITY BALL: $2,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetBERNIE'S BOOK BANK: $504 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetDallas Methodist Hospitals Foundation Inc: $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetDallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum: $135 over 1y, 0.0% 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 FRENCH HERITAGE SOCIETY INC ↗
  • Who funds LAFAYETTE COLLEGE ↗
  • Who funds TEXAS INTERNATIONAL THEATRICAL ARTS SOCIETY ↗
  • Who funds THE CRYSTAL CHARITY BALL ↗
  • Who funds BERNIE'S BOOK BANK ↗
  • Who funds Dallas Methodist Hospitals Foundation Inc ↗
  • Who funds Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum ↗

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 tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Donor Advised Charita…Fidelity Investments …Amazonsmile Foundation
Donor Advised Charitable Giving IncCO6.5× affinity4 shared granteesties to 2 of 2Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

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 Robert J Potter Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Robert J Potter Foundation. 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%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    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 Robert J Potter Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Robert J Potter 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.

    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 26 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 2025, released 2025. 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