· Private foundation
Sam Shine Foundation Inc
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k5 grants · $21k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $146k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $537k
- $250k+5 grants · $4.7M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NOKUSE EDUCATION INC | $3,301,280 |
| THE NATURE CONSERVANCY | $501,045 |
| RIVER HERITAGE CONSERVANCY | $390,000 |
| CENTRAL INDIANA LAND TRUST | $305,500 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF SOUTHERN INDIANA | $250,000 |
| WOODIE WHEATON LAND TRUST | $200,000 |
| PURDUE | $146,500 |
| CONSERVATION LAW CENTER | $140,000 |
| INDIANA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY | $50,000 |
| ECOSYSTEMS CONNECTIONS INSTITUTE | $40,500 |
| INDIANA LAND TRUST ALLIANCE | $40,000 |
| MONTESSORI FIELD SCHOOL | $35,000 |
| AMERICAN BIRD CONSERVANCY | $10,125 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| MISSOURI CONSERVATION HERITAGE FOUNDATION | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 87% 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.
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.
36 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 27 since wound down; 9 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $204k 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
- NENOKUSE EDUCATION INC4× · 2021–2024 · $5.0M · revenue ×65 · 44% of their budget
- RHRIVER HERITAGE CONSERVANCY INC5× · 2020–2024 · $2.0M · revenue +276% · 25% of their budget
- NRNatural Resources Council of Maine Inc2× · 2017–2018 · $1.2M · revenue +17% · 26% of their budget
Funded once
- USUNITED STATES FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICEone grant, 2018 · $9.6M
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2018 · $1.0M
- IDINDIANA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCESone grant, 2019 · $1.0M
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.
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.
Dedicated to protecting the world's natural environment on behalf of the public by serving as a public interest law firm. refer to schedule o, part iii, line 4a, for list of litigated cases or advocacy work.
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…
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
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.
This member-supported organization protects and restores iowa's land, water and wildlife for future generations. priorities include permanent land protection, promotion of improved land management and bringing new conservation…
Mission is to seek protection of land and water resources through restoration and conservation; and conducting education and outreach on the ecological and economic importance of natural lands. we protect land from development and protect…
Colorado open lands' mission is to preserve the significant open lands and natural heritage of colorado through private and public partnerships, innovative land conservation, and strategic leadership.
Recognizing that a healthy environment is critical to the well-being and survival of all living things, new jersey conservation foundation is devoted to preserving land and protecting natural resources throughout new jersey's (continued on…
The mission of heartlands conservancy is to empower and colaborate with the people of southern illinois to advance and protect the health of our distinctive communities and nationally significant natural and cultural resources.
Defenders of Wildlife is a national, nonprofit membership organization dedicated to the protection of all native animals and plants in their natural communities.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is River Heritage Conservancy Inc and the most unlike its peers is The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 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 39 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) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
46 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. 46 of the 77 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 NOKUSE EDUCATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds RIVER HERITAGE CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds WOODIE WHEATON LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds Natural Resources Council of Maine Inc ↗
- Who funds SYCAMORE LAND TRUST INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds WATERFRONT BOTANICAL GARDENS INC ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL INDIANA LAND TRUST INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds THE CONSERVATION LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE OHIO RIVER GREENWAY ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF SOUTHERN INDIANA INC ↗
- Who funds 21ST CENTURY PARKS INC ↗
- Who funds THE FALLS OF THE OHIO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds INDIANA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds INDIANA KARST CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds American Bird Conservancy ↗
- Who funds MONTESSORI FIELD SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds ALIGN SOUTHERN INDIANA INC ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds MISSOURI CONSERVATION HERITAGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds INDIANA AUDUBON SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY ↗
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 Nature Conservancy · Duke Energy Foundation · The Community Foundation of Louisville Inc · Paul Ogle Foundation Inc · Starlight Foundation Inc · Horseshoe Foundation of Floyd County Inc · W L Lyons Brown Foundation · The Gheens Foundation Inc · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Ge Aerospace Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · The Pfizer Foundation 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 Sam Shine Foundation 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 Sam Shine Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Sam Shine Foundation 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.