· Private foundation
Ruth Parr Sparks 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 it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k8 grants · $47k
- $10k–50k17 grants · $333k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $45,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $38,000 |
| MD Anderson Cancer Center | $28,000 |
| Driscoll Childrens Hospital | $28,000 |
| Corpus Christi Ministries Inc | $22,000 |
| Friends of Padre | $19,000 |
| Flatsworthy | $19,000 |
| Jim Wells County First Responders | $17,820 |
| Passion for Paws | $17,000 |
| Rockport Center for the Arts | $15,000 |
| Shelter A Mutt | $14,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $14,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $14,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY17–18, $44k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 17%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
41 repeat relationships: 25 still active in FY2025, 16 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- FOFRIENDS OF PADRE INC9× · 2017–2025 · $142k · revenue +572% · 73% of their budget
- FIFLATSWORTHY INC7× · 2019–2025 · $112k · revenue +89% · 36% of their budget
- DCDriscoll Children's Hospital5× · 2021–2025 · $102k · revenue +122%
Funded once
- JCjCorpus Christi Ministries Incone grant, 2022 · $26k
- MDM D Cancer Centerone grant, 2023 · $25k
- ACARANSAS COUNTY ISDone 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.
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.
Helping animals seek medical care/homes
This organization is committed to the rescue of homeless animals, providing routine and emergency medical care as well as spaying/neutering, and placement in temporary foster homes, then placing them in their permanent homes.
Rescue, rehabilitate, and provide necessary care to animals so that they become adoptable and find loving homes.
Placement of neutered cats and kittens
Rescue and care of abandoned animals
To save the lives of at-risk animals in South Texas through fundraising and forming out of state transport partners.
Rescuing Cats and Dogs
To serve as a no-kill dog rescue.
Veterinary and animal adoption services
Animal rescue and adoptions
Care for stray animals
Our mission at Second Chance Dog Rescue is to care for companion animals in need byoffering safe refuge, providing medical care (including sterilization) and facilitating adoptions.
How this is measured
10 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. 10 of the 50 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.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
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.
- Who funds GONZALES YOUTH CENTER ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF PADRE INC ↗
- Who funds FLATSWORTHY INC ↗
- Who funds Driscoll Children's Hospital ↗
- Who funds Gonzales Crystal Theater Inc ↗
- Who funds SHELTER A MUTT INC ↗
- Who funds PAWS - GULF COAST HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds CORPUS CHRISTI METRO MINISTRIESINC ↗
- Who funds KLEBERG COUNTY PREGNANCY RESOURCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds WINGS RESCUE CENTER ↗
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.
Open a dossier: Behmann Brothers Foundation · Ed Rachal Foundation · Celanese Foundation · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization Ruth Parr Sparks Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Ruth Parr Sparks Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Ruth Parr Sparks Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Ruth Parr Sparks 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.
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