· Private foundation
Ruth Brown 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
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k13 grants · $44k
- $10k–50k16 grants · $289k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $140k
- $250k+1 grant · $250k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| TIDES FOUNDATION | $250,000 |
| EARTH JUSTICE | $75,000 |
| NATURAL RESOURCE DEFENSE COUNCIL | $65,000 |
| LAWYERS FOR GOOD GOVERNMENT | $44,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $35,000 |
| VERMONT PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH ED | $30,000 |
| OUR CHILDREN'S TRUST | $30,000 |
| RFV HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | $25,000 |
| PSEPHOS INC | $20,000 |
| SIGNAL TEC COALITION | $15,000 |
| SAN JUAN CITIZENS ALLIANCE | $10,000 |
| CREEDE HISTORIC SOCIETY | $10,000 |
| CONSERVATION COLORADO | $10,000 |
| OCEANA | $10,000 |
| AMERICAN RIVERS | $10,000 |
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 (FY18–25, $36k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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 +46% since the first grant, against +11% for the ones you funded once.
92 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2025, 69 since wound down; 7 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, 66% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $159k 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
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC9× · 2017–2025 · $165k · revenue +41%
EARTHJUSTICE7× · 2018–2025 · $122k · revenue +114%- WRWestern Resource Advocates8× · 2017–2025 · $93k · revenue +87%
Funded once
- EFENVIRONMENT FOUNDATIONone grant, 2023 · $20k
- SCSIERRA CLUB ENVIRONMENTAL LAWone grant, 2018 · $20k
- GEGROWING EMPOWERMENTone grant, 2023 · $15k
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.
Cascadia wildlands defends and restores cacasia's wild ecosystems in the forests,in the courts, and in the streets. we envision vast old-growth forests, rivers full of wild salmon, wolves howling in the backcountry, a stable climate, and…
Sustainable Conservation advances the collaborative stewardship of Californias land, air, and water for the benefit of nature and people. For over three decades, Sustainable Conservation has built coalitions of people with different…
Greater yellowstone coalition works with all people to protect the lands, waters, and wildlife of the greater yellowstone ecosystem, now and for future generations.
Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
We are a grassroots movement working to build a fossil-free future powered by 100% renewable energy. we empower communities across colorado to join together to fight for environmental justice. through our volunteer-led teams, we use a…
The California Wilderness Coalition protects the natural landscapes that make California unique, providing clean air and water, a home to wildlife, and a place for recreation and spiritual renewal.
Icl's mission is to create a conservation community and pragmatic, enduring solutions that protect and restore the air you breathe, the water you drink, and the land and wildlife you love.
The national caucus of environmental legislators empowers a nonpartisan network of legislative champions to protect, conserve, and improve the natural and human environment.
Building a diverse grassroots movement to address the causes of climate disruption through justice-based solutions by inspiring, training and mobilizing people to act.
Western rivers conservancy's mission is to protect outstanding river ecosystems in the western united states. continued on schedule o.we acquire land to conserve critical habitat, provide public access for compatible use and enjoyment, and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Conservation Colorado Education Fund and the most unlike its peers is Moab Healthcare 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.
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 34 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
92 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. 92 of the 187 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 TIDES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds EARTHJUSTICE ↗
- Who funds CONSERVATION COLORADO ↗
- Who funds Western Resource Advocates ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds San Juan Citizens Alliance ↗
- Who funds CITIZENS CLIMATE EDUCATION CORP ↗
- Who funds CREEDE REPERTORY THEATRE ↗
- Who funds THE GRAND CANYON TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds ASPEN CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES ↗
- Who funds LAWYERS FOR GOOD GOVERNMENT INC ↗
- Who funds PROTECT OUR WINTERS ↗
- Who funds CRESTED BUTTE LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds CONSERVATION COLORADO EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds SAN JUAN MOUNTAINS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds CANYONLANDS FIELD INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds PSEPHOS INC ↗
- Who funds OUR CHILDREN'S TRUST ↗
- Who funds VERMONT NATURAL RESOURCES COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds THE UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS INC ↗
- Who funds POPULATION CONNECTION ↗
- Who funds OCEANA INC ↗
- Who funds COLORADO OPEN LANDS ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE CENTER ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF CEDAR MESA ↗
- Who funds TRAILS 2000 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: Patagoniaorg · Colorado Gives Foundation · Alpenglow Foundation · Resources Legacy Fund · Maki Foundation · The Vermont Community Foundation · United States Energy Foundation · Aspen Business Center Foundation · Palladium Foundation · The New-Land Foundation Inc · The May Family Foundation · The Wilderness Society
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 Ruth Brown 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.
- Institute for Sustainable Communities — 100% of income from government
- Vermont Natural Resources Council Inc — 30% of income from government
- Vermont Council On Rural Development Inc — 17% of income from government
- Rutland West Neighborhood Housing Services Inc — 9% of income from government
- Energy Action Network Inc — 0% of income from government
- The Vermont Community Foundation — 0% 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 Ruth Brown Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Ruth Brown 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.