How much does Ruth Brown Foundation give?

Ruth Brown Foundation reported 32 grants totaling $722,500 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 49 and 67 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Ruth Brown Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Environment (80%), Philanthropy (8%), Arts & Culture (2%).

Who are Ruth Brown Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Natural Resources Defense Council Inc ($165k), Earthjustice ($122k), Conservation Colorado ($120k).

Does Ruth Brown Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 45% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Ruth Brown Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Ruth Brown Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Patagoniaorg, Colorado Gives Foundation, Alpenglow Foundation.

Where is Ruth Brown Foundation based?

Ruth Brown Foundation is based in UT.

Ruth Brown Foundation

Ruth Brown Foundation at a glance

· 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.

$723k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$250k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Environment$2.7MPhilanthropy$263kArts & Culture$70kCommunity Improvement$64kHealth$49kScience & Tech$44kRecreation & Sports$35kPublic Benefit$33kOther$0

02FY2025 · 32 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k13 grants · $44k
$10k–50k16 grants · $289k
$50k–250k2 grants · $140k
$250k+1 grant · $250k

$10,000

Median grant

States reached

$4.1M

Total assets

Largest grants
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
CONSERVATION COLORADO	$10,000
CREEDE HISTORIC SOCIETY	$10,000
SAN JUAN CITIZENS ALLIANCE	$10,000
OCEANA	$10,000
CITIZENS CLIMATE EDUCATION	$10,000

02The need

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:

Its 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 its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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.

Which US states its grants reach

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.

81%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$2.5M · 92 repeat orgs$579k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +46% since the first grant, against +11% for those 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

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$2.5M

$420k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+46%

+11%

Still filing today

60%

34%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 66% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $159k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EnvironmentInternationalCommunity ImprovementCrime & LegalCivil RightsHuman ServicesOther

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

NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC
9× · 2017–2025 · $165k · revenue +41%
EARTHJUSTICE
7× · 2018–2025 · $122k · revenue +114%
WR
Western Resource Advocates
8× · 2017–2025 · $93k · revenue +114%

Funded once

SC
SIERRA CLUB ENVIRONMENTAL LAW
one grant, 2018 · $20k
EF
ENVIRONMENT FOUNDATION
one grant, 2023 · $20k
IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2019 · $15k

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

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Cascadia Wildlands

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…

Environment

Sustainable Conservation

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…

Environment

Environment Now

—

Greater Yellowstone Coalition

Greater yellowstone coalition works with all people to protect the lands, waters, and wildlife of the greater yellowstone ecosystem, now and for future generations.

Environment

World Wildlife Fund Inc

Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)

Environment

Rainforest Trust

Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.

International

350 Colorado

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…

Environment

CalWild

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.

—

Idaho Conservation League Inc

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.

—

National Caucus of Environmental Legislators

The national caucus of environmental legislators empowers a nonpartisan network of legislative champions to protect, conserve, and improve the natural and human environment.

Education

350PDX

Building a diverse grassroots movement to address the causes of climate disruption through justice-based solutions by inspiring, training and mobilizing people to act.

Environment

Western Rivers Conservancy

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…

Environment

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Conservation Colorado Education Fund; 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.

04the grantee network

92 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. 92 of the 187 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

90/92

Grantees still filing

59/92

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$1,455,400Environment$1,168,000Philanthropy$260,000Civil Rights$153,000Crime & Legal$127,500Animals$96,000Arts & Culture$84,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

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.

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.

PatagoniaorgCA41.3× affinity21 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

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

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 Ruth Brown Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Ruth Brown Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

6get no government money at all

22report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

1rely on government for over half their income

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 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.

Play a game based on Ruth Brown’s filings →

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