Skip to content
Plinth
Foundation Dossiers
Plinth

· Private foundation

Rugeley Ferguson 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.

$378k
Granted FY2025still arriving
29
Grants FY2025still arriving
8
States reached
$145k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your edgeRead
04Your fieldRead
01What you fund
0199% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.

Human Services$547kAnimals$491kHealth$211kArts & Culture$165kRecreation & Sports$125kEducation$123kYouth Development$60kReligion$47kOther$0
02FY2025 · 29 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k20 grants · $100k
  • $10k–50k7 grants · $70k
  • $50k–250k2 grants · $208k
$5,000
Median grant
8
States reached
$6.4M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Special Forces Charitable Trust$145,000
San Antonio Zoological Society$62,675
ROUGHRIDERS BAR-B-Q INC$10,000
Rodeo Austin$10,000
HILL COUNTRY SPORTING CLAYS FOUNDATION$10,000
SAN ANTONIO LIVESTOCK EXPOSITION$10,000
SOUTH TEXAS COASTAL INITIATIVE$10,000
CLUB 12$10,000
TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY$10,000
BREAKTHROUGH T1D$5,000
HOPE HITS HARDER$5,000
USA SHOOTING INC$5,000
CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH$5,000
FISHER HOUSE INC$5,000
SEAL FUTURE FOUNDATION INC$5,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY23–25, $20k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%CAMP ARANZAZU: $5k → 16%CAMP ARANAZU: $5k → 17%Moms for America: $5k → 14%CAMP ARANZAZU: $5k → 16%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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

MI
NY
OR
OH
CT
CA
CO
MO
MD
TN
NC
SC
OK
TX
FL

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

87%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$1.6M · 28 repeat orgs$249k to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +40% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.

28 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 10 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

28
21

Total granted

$1.6M
$194k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+40%
0%

Still filing today

79%
57%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $55k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’20’21’22’23’24’25
HealthArts & CultureAnimalsYouth DevelopmentPhilanthropyRecreation & SportsOther

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

  • TS
    THE SPECIAL FORCES CHARITABLE TRUST
    6× · 2020–2025 · $522k · revenue +160%
  • SA
    SAN ANTONIO ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY
    7× · 2017–2025 · $395k · revenue +84%
  • SA
    SAN ANTONIO LIVESTOCK EXPOSITION INC
    5× · 2020–2025 · $85k · revenue +33%

Funded once

  • RA
    RED ARENA INC
    one grant, 2021 · $80k · revenue -21%
  • TR
    THREE RANGERS FOUNDATION
    one grant, 2024 · $10k · revenue 0%
  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    one grant, 2022 · $10k

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

1
Texas Flying Legends Museum
—
2
Texas State Rifle Association Foundation Inc
—
3
Center for 20TH Century Texas Studies
—
4
Kimbell Art Foundation
Arts & Culture
5
Alamo Trust Inc

The organization is to be operated exclusively to preserve and restore the alamo complex and to educate and inspire visitors on the history of all those who lived, fought, and died there.

Arts & Culture
6
San Jacinto Museum and Battlefield Association

To collect and preserve significant historical materials that relate to the early history and culture of Texas and to promote the study of the history of Texas through exhibits, publications, and educational programs.

Arts & Culture
7
Texas Public Radio

The mission of Texas Public Radio is to engage, inspire and inform, bringing people together to better understand their community and world.

Arts & Culture
8
Texas Prairieland Foundation
Philanthropy
9
Genetic Resource Association of Texas
Health
10
Texas Marines Medal of Honor Fund

The texas marines medal of honor fund is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization focused on the remembrance of the sixteen texas marines and one navy corpsman who received the medal of honor; the maintenance of the texas marine medal of honor…

Arts & Culture
11
Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

We inspire people to live in harmony with the natural world by fostering love, appreciation, and understanding of the sonoran desert.

Arts & Culture
12
Texas Ranger Association Foundation

Support active and retired texas rangers and immediate family members through scholarships, financial assistance, and operational support in service to the citizens of texas; preserve and perpetuate the history and heritage of the texas…

—

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is San Antonio Livestock Exposition Inc and the most unlike its peers is TrueNorth Health Foundation. 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.

← shrinkinggrowing →↓ leaning in → pulling backsteady#19#16#17#9#14
the sector your giving your giving is ahead of the sector the sector’s ahead of you· dot size = how much the theme matters to each side
Ordered by the change in your giving — leaning in on top, pulling back at the bottom. The bar between the two dots is how out of step you are with the sector. Hover any row for detail.

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 32 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number26%13%<5yr16%2%5–10yr20%23%10–20yr16%17%20–35yr10%17%35–55yr13%28%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value26%3%<5yr16%1%5–10yr20%41%10–20yr16%5%20–35yr10%11%35–55yr13%39%55yr+

The field is 26% startups (under 5 years old) — 13% of your grantees by number, and just 3% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
0.0%0/49
the rest of the field
15%
20,233/136,755

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.

04the grantee network

45 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. 45 of the 60 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.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
12
Early backer (in before they grew)
44/45
Grantees still filing
27/45
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

THE SPECIAL FORCES CHARITABLE TRUST — $522,100 · PhilanthropyTHE SPECIAL FORCES CHARITABLE TR…+1 more — $15,000 · PhilanthropySAN ANTONIO ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY — $394,675 · AnimalsSAN ANTONIO ZOOLOGICAL SOCIE…RODEO AUSTIN — $70,000 · AnimalsRODEO AUSTIN+2 more — $10,000 · AnimalsFORMER TEXAS RANGERS FOUNDATION — $45,000 · OtherFORMER TEXAS RANGERS FO…CHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH — $32,000 · OtherCHRIST EPISCOPAL CHURCHTHE ACORN - A SCHOOL FOR YOUNG CHILDREN — $25,000 · OtherTHE ACORN - A SCHOOL FO…UTHSCSA — $15,000 · OtherST ANDREWS - SEWANEE SCHOOL — $15,000 · OtherLONE STAR OUTDOOR NEWS FOUNDATION — $30,000 · OtherLONE STAR OUTDOOR NEWS …MAJESTY OUTDOORS — $15,000 · OtherROUGHRIDERS BAR-B-Q INC — $15,000 · OtherSOUTH TEXAS COASTAL INITIATIVE — $20,000 · OtherFISHER HOUSE INC — $20,000 · OtherCamp Aranzazu Inc — $15,000 · Other+22 more — $140,000 · Other+22 moreRED ARENA INC — $80,000 · HealthRED ARENA I…TEXAS BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE — $35,000 · HealthTEXAS BIOME…SUPPORT FOR LIFE — $25,000 · HealthSUPPORT FOR…CLUB 12 — $20,000 · HealthCLUB 12+5 more — $25,000 · Health+5 moreSAN ANTONIO MUSEUM OF ART — $40,000 · Arts & CultureWitte Museum — $40,000 · Arts & CultureMCNAY ART MUSEUM — $15,000 · Arts & CultureSAN ANTONIO CHILDREN'S MUSEUM — $10,000 · Arts & CultureADMIRAL NIMITZ FOUNDATION — $5,000 · Arts & CultureTHE OPERA SAN ANTONIO DBA OPERA SAN AN — $5,000 · Arts & CultureTHE SONS OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS — $5,000 · Arts & CultureSAN ANTONIO LIVESTOCK EXPOSITION INC — $85,000 · Recreation & SportsHILL COUNTRY SPORTING CLAYS FOUNDATION INC — $10,000 · Recreation & SportsTEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY — $60,000 · EducationHILLSDALE COLLEGE — $5,000 · EducationCONVERSE UNIVERSITY — $5,000 · Education
Philanthropy$537,100Animals$474,675Other$387,000Health$185,000Arts & Culture$120,000Recreation & Sports$95,000Education$70,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetTHE SPECIAL FORCES CHARITABLE TRUST — $522,100 over 6y, 2.8% of budgetSAN ANTONIO ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY — $394,675 over 7y, 0.6% of budgetSAN ANTONIO LIVESTOCK EXPOSITION INC — $85,000 over 5y, 0.2% of budgetRED ARENA INC — $80,000 over 1y, 4.4% of budgetRODEO AUSTIN — $70,000 over 4y, 0.9% of budgetTEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY — $60,000 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetFORMER TEXAS RANGERS FOUNDATION — $45,000 over 7y, 1.7% of budgetSAN ANTONIO MUSEUM OF ART — $40,000 over 7y, 0.1% of budgetWitte Museum — $40,000 over 7y, 0.1% of budgetTEXAS BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE — $35,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetSUPPORT FOR LIFE — $25,000 over 4y, 4.0% of budgetTHE ACORN - A SCHOOL FOR YOUNG CHILDREN — $25,000 over 3y, 1.5% of budgetFISHER HOUSE INC — $20,000 over 4y, 0.7% of budgetSOUTH TEXAS COASTAL INITIATIVE — $20,000 over 2y, 71% of budgetCLUB 12 — $20,000 over 3y, 2.2% of budgetMCNAY ART MUSEUM — $15,000 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetMAJESTY OUTDOORS — $15,000 over 3y, 1.2% of budgetCamp Aranzazu Inc — $15,000 over 3y, 0.3% of budgetROUGHRIDERS BAR-B-Q INC — $15,000 over 2y, 11% of budgetSEAL FUTURE FOUNDATION INC — $15,000 over 3y, 0.2% of budgetSAN ANTONIO CHILDREN'S MUSEUM — $10,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetHILL COUNTRY SPORTING CLAYS FOUNDATION INC — $10,000 over 1y, 5.5% of budgetTHREE RANGERS FOUNDATION — $10,000 over 1y, 1.5% of budgetLOS COMPADRES DE SAN ANTONIO — $10,000 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetCOASTAL CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION — $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetFISHER HOUSE FOUNDATION INC — $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetBAT CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL — $6,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetHILLSDALE COLLEGE — $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSA Life Academy — $5,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetTEXAS STATE AQUARIUM ASSOCIATION — $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetBREAKTHROUGH T1D — $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetAUGUSTHEART — $5,000 over 1y, 1.6% of budgetTHE OPERA SAN ANTONIO DBA OPERA SAN AN — $5,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetTHE SONS OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS — $5,000 over 1y, 2.5% of budgetMcMullen Co Community Development Corp — $5,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetTrueNorth Health Foundation — $5,000 over 1y, 0.6% of budgetCONVERSE UNIVERSITY — $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetHyperbarics for Heroes Inc — $5,000 over 1y, 24% of budgetST ANDREW'S-SEWANEE SCHOOL — $2,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

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.

San Antonio Area Foun…The Brown Foundation …Greater Houston Commu…Mays Family FoundationElizabeth Huth Coates…Nelson Puett Foundati…Horse Creek TrustRoger L and Laura D Z…Ksl Family FoundationImpetus FoundationMcCombs Foundation IncJohn R & Greli N Less…
San Antonio Area FoundationTX22.7× affinity9 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: San Antonio Area Foundation · The Brown Foundation Inc · Greater Houston Community Foundation · Mays Family Foundation · Elizabeth Huth Coates Charitable Foundation of 1992 · Nelson Puett Foundation · Horse Creek Trust · Roger L and Laura D Zeller Charitable Foundation · Ksl Family Foundation · Impetus Foundation · McCombs Foundation Inc · John R & Greli N Less Charitable Trust #FE324

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 Rugeley Ferguson 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.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 20%5%19%42%75%your share of their income ↑0%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from government →median 0%
  • K9S for Warriors Inc — 0% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
2get no government money at all
7report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
typical government reliance, FY20–25

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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 60 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your 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. How we build these →

Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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