· Public charity
Rural Action Inc
Rural Action's mission is to build a more just economy by developing the region's assets in environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable ways.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2023–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k7 grants · $205k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $216k
- $250k+1 grant · $2.8M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Mountain Association | $2,762,641 |
| Ohio University Bursar Office | $134,465 |
| Building Bridges to Careers | $81,621 |
| Coalfield Development Corporation | $49,579 |
| Southeast Ohio Hope Center | $39,540 |
| Passion Works | $38,700 |
| Appalachian Center for Economic Networks Inc | $25,205 |
| Appalachian Sustainable Development | $22,232 |
| Community Food Initiative | $16,706 |
| United Plant Savers | $12,942 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY23–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 15%. 100% of your 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.
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 +58% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
7 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down; 3 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, 10% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.9M 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
- ACAPPALACHIAN CENTER FOR ECONOMIC NETWORKS INC2× · 2023–2024 · $414k · revenue +51% · 30% of their budget
- PWPASSION WORKS2× · 2023–2024 · $46k · revenue +72%
- ASAPPALACHIAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT2× · 2023–2024 · $38k · revenue +58%
Funded once
- AHAthens Hocking Recycling Centerone grant, 2023 · $83k
- TCTHE CORPORATION FOR OHIO APPALACHIAN DEVELOPMENTone grant, 2023 · $27k · revenue +19%
- LHLIVE HEALTHY APPALACHIA INC FERRIER LAW OFFICEone grant, 2023 · $23k · revenue 0%
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.
Education on sustainability of the environment
Economic development in appalachia
To help local farms thrive, link farmers to markets and supporters, and build healthy communities through connections to local food.
The conserving of natural resources and improving rural economies through leadership and education.
To develop jobs & economic development for the jackson co ohio area
Increase agricultural footprint in letcher co ky and surrounding counties; establish permanent outlet for local farm products and creation of value added products; access to healthy local food; gain skills in preparing foods; offering of…
To foster enduring, widely spread prosperity across appalachian ohio by helping build the region's private sector business economy and work with banks and revolving loan funds as an additional or alternate funding source for small business…
Community Agroecology Network's (CAN) mission is to develop a network comprised of rural communities in Latin America and U.S. consumers that work together to support self-sufficiency and sustainable farming practices.
To increase small business lending by providing appalachian member institutions that serve underserved people and communities with new sources of capital.
Economic Development and Tourism Promotion in Eastern Kentucky
To energize rural pennsylvania, enabling all citizens to innovate, create, and manufacture, building a lasting economy
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Corporation for Ohio Appalachian Development and the most unlike its peers is Coalfield Development Corporation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 14 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 MOUNTAIN ASSOCIATION FOR COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT INC ↗
- Who funds APPALACHIAN CENTER FOR ECONOMIC NETWORKS INC ↗
- Who funds COALFIELD DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOOD INITIATIVES ↗
- Who funds PASSION WORKS ↗
- Who funds RECOVERY CONNECTIONS OF SOUTHEAST OHIO ↗
- Who funds APPALACHIAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ↗
- Who funds UNITED PLANT SAVERS ↗
- Who funds THE CORPORATION FOR OHIO APPALACHIAN DEVELOPMENT ↗
- Who funds LIVE HEALTHY APPALACHIA INC FERRIER LAW OFFICE ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN PERRY INCUBATION CENTER FOR ENTERPRENEURS ↗
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: Athens County Foundation · Sisters of St Joseph Charitable Fund Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Rural Action Inc 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.
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 Rural Action Inc?
Find your warmest path to Rural Action Inc 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.