· Private foundation
Ruth Lee Charitable Trust
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 FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k14 grants · $54k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $58k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WESLEYAN FUND | $32,500 |
| ALABAMA SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL | $15,000 |
| HEART OF ALABAMA FOOD BANK | $10,000 |
| COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON FOUNDATION | $8,500 |
| FAULKNER UNIVERSITY | $6,557 |
| LUNCHES FOR LEARNING INC | $6,000 |
| MONTGOMERY AREA COUNCIL ON AGING | $5,000 |
| MONTGOMERY MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS | $5,000 |
| OPP CHURCH OF CHRIST | $4,000 |
| ELBA CHURCH OF CHRIST | $4,000 |
| THE PRESCHOOL | $3,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,500 |
| AMERICAN RED CROSS | $2,500 |
| UNION CHURCH CEMETERY | $1,500 |
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, $91k) land where the poverty rate runs at 18%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 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.
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.
23 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2025, 7 since wound down; 1 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- FUFAULKNER UNIVERSITY8× · 2018–2025 · $118k · revenue +51%
- MAMONTGOMERY AREA COUNCIL ON AGING8× · 2018–2025 · $83k · revenue +38%
- HOHEART OF ALABAMA FOOD BANK INC5× · 2019–2025 · $49k · revenue +48%
Funded once
- RFRESPITE FOR ALL FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue +225%
- UMUNITED METHODIST CHILDREN'S HOMEone grant, 2024 · $7k · revenue 0%
- MCMONTGOMERY CAPITAL ROTARY CHARITIES INCone grant, 2019 · $4k
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.
To feed people in need today and foster collaborative solutions to end hunger tomorrow.
The credit union's mission is to promote thrift among its members and create a source of credit for them at legitimate rates of interest. the credit union serves members in several counties throughout alabama. the total number of members…
To promote the preservation and continued development of commercial banking in alabama.
collect warehouse & distribute food to needy organizations
To elevate the legal profession to the highest possible standards, regulate its practice, and provide continuing legal education to its members.
Retirement and nursing home care
To improve lives by mobilizing the caring power of the community
The alabama alliance netowrk works to strengthen and enhance alabama's civic society through research, education, and grantmaking
Operation of a public charter school in Mobile Alabama.
Community and economic development
To facilitate implementation of workforce development programs andservices that support economic and job development in the region andthat address the workforce needs of existing businesses and industry.
Administration of federal, state and local awards and grants for the poverty sector of a 7 county area in alabama, providing headstart education, food, shelter, maintenance, and weatherization programs.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Heart of Alabama Food Bank Inc and the most unlike its peers is Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
14 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. 14 of the 34 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 ALABAMA SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds FAULKNER UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds MONTGOMERY AREA COUNCIL ON AGING ↗
- Who funds HEART OF ALABAMA FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LUNCHES FOR LEARNING INC ↗
- Who funds MONTGOMERY MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds CIVITAN INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds RESPITE FOR ALL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Bridge Builders Alabama ↗
- Who funds UNITED METHODIST CHILDREN'S HOME ↗
- Who funds HOPE INSPIRED MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds THE SAMARITAN COUNSELING CENTER IN ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL ALABAMA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION 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: The Daniel Foundation of Alabama · The S Adam Schloss Foundation Inc · Kiwanis Club of Montgomery Foundation Inc · John and Joyce Caddell Foundation · The J K Lowder Family Foundation · Arthur M Britton Foundation Inc · Samuel L Schloss Family Foundation Tr Schlossburke K Trustee · B Stephen Schloss Foundation · The Landa Fund · Alfa Foundation · Alabama Power Foundation Inc · Intouch Inc
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 Lee Charitable Trust 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.