· Private foundation
Samford-Cannon Foundation
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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k13 grants · $40k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $182k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $248k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FIRST METHODIST CHURCH | $147,752 |
| OPELIKA CHAMBER FOUNDATION | $50,012 |
| OPELIKA SPORTSPLEX & AQUATICS CENTER | $50,000 |
| EAST ALABAMA MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION | $40,836 |
| OPELIKA CITY SCHOOLS | $27,955 |
| AUBURN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| AUBURN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION | $24,931 |
| US SPACE & ROCKET CENTER EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $24,284 |
| JASON DUFNER CHARITABLE FOUNDATION | $18,385 |
| SOUTHERN UNION FOUNDATION | $10,418 |
| HUDSON FAMILY FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| HUNTINGDON COLLEGE | $5,000 |
| WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
| EXCEPTIONAL FOUNDATION OF EAST ALABAMA | $5,000 |
| EXODUS RANCH | $5,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $108k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 26% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 7% of Samford-Cannon Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +35% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
33 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2024, 14 since wound down; 4 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, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $14k 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
- AUAUBURN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2024 · $464k · revenue +80%
- HCHUNTINGDON COLLEGE4× · 2020–2024 · $207k · revenue +17%
- EAEAST ALABAMA MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2024 · $109k · revenue +79%
Funded once
- BLBLUE LAKE UNITED METHODIST ASSOCIATIONone grant, 2023 · $25k
- EAEAST ALABAMA ARTS ASSOCIATIONone grant, 2023 · $20k
- MPMT PLEASANT HISTORICAL PRESERVATION SOCIETYone grant, 2021 · $6k
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 support the university of alabama at birmingham in its scientific and educational mission, including managing and disbursing funds, acquiring real property, and providing operational flexibility.
The university foundation is organized to assist and aid the board of trustees of the university of alabama in fulfilling its educational, research, and public service programs and activities.
To support the university of north alabama in its educational endeavors.
The Alabama A&M University Foundation was established to receive, hold, invest, manage, use, and administer property of all kinds, whether given absolutely or in trust, for the benefit of Alabama A&M University and its educational,…
To work in partnership with families and organizations to ensure that all alabama children (birth to five) get everything they need to develop to their fullest potential.
Habitat for humanity of baldwin county, inc. is an ecumenical, christian housing ministry that seeks to eliminate poverty housing by partnering with the community to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action.
To raise private support from individuals, corporations, foundations, and others to further the interests of augusta university. other purposes of the foundation are to establish and maintain endowments and provide the administration for…
The mission of the Foundation is to mobilize community support and resources for the academic improvement of the Mountain Brook City School System through technological improvement, library enhancement, and professional development.
To glorify god by providing a quality, christ-centered education which challenges students and teachers to maximize their potential so that graduates are prepared to further their education while becoming productive christian citizens.
College students often feel disconnected when they arrive to campus. university of southern mississippi wesley foundation fosters meaningful relationships that provide a faith family for students during their college years.
Mid-atlantic christian university is an undergraduate institution of christian higher learning whose mission is to impact the world by transforming ordinary people into extraordinary christian leaders. students are taught to think…
The Trusts mission is to support and improve educational excellence at Alabama A&M University through the granting of academic scholarships at the Unviversity, the endowment of academic chairs, the subsidizing of current faculty positions,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is National Center for Family Philanthropy Inc and the most unlike its peers is Bighouse Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 28 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% 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.
30 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. 30 of the 57 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 AUBURN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HUNTINGDON COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds OPELIKA CHAMBER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds EAST ALABAMA MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds US SPACE & ROCKET CENTER EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HUDSON FAMILY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF EAST ALABAMA INC ↗
- Who funds JASON DUFNER CHARITABLE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Washington and Lee University ↗
- Who funds STORYBOOK FARM INC ↗
- Who funds SMILE-A-MILE ↗
- Who funds ESPERANZA HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds Performing Arts Center Inc ↗
- Who funds UNITED METHODIST CHILDREN'S HOME ↗
- Who funds THE EXCEPTIONAL FOUNDATION OF EAST ALABAMA INC ↗
- Who funds Highlands Cashiers Health Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds MT PLEASANT HISTORICAL PRESERVATION SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds The Exodus Ranch ↗
- Who funds BIRMINGHAM-SOUTHERN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds AUBURN OPELIKA HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INC ↗
- Who funds BIGHOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds MIRACLE LEAGUE OF EAST ALABAMA 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: Alabama Power Foundation Inc · Scott Foundation Inc · Bruce Pearl Family Foundation · E L Spencer Jr Foundation Inc · Pleiad Foundation · Davison Bruce Foundation · Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail Foundation · Alfa Foundation · The Daniel Foundation of Alabama · The Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham · Publix Super Markets Charities Inc · Enterprise Holdings Foundation
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 Samford-Cannon 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.
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.