· Private foundation
Self 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k27 grants · $61k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $63k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ST JUDE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL | $20,000 |
| TEACH FOR AMERICA | $12,500 |
| BALLET MEMPHIS | $10,000 |
| MD ANDERSON CANCER CENTER | $10,000 |
| FRACTURED ATLAS | $10,000 |
| QUITMAN COUNTY EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION | $8,440 |
| LIBERTAS SCHOOL OF MEMPHIS | $7,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| M28 MINISTRIES INC | $5,000 |
| CAMP MARYMOUNT | $5,000 |
| ST PETER CATHOLIC CHURCH | $5,000 |
| QUITMAN COUNTY ECONOMIC TOURISM & DEVELOPMENT INC | $3,000 |
| OPERA MEMPHIS | $3,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI MUSEUM | $2,625 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,500 |
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 (FY17–24, $35k) land where the poverty rate runs at 20%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +28% since the first grant, against +27% for the ones you funded once.
64 repeat relationships — 26 still active in FY2024, 38 since wound down; 5 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, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15k 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
FRACTURED ATLAS INC6× · 2019–2024 · $63k · revenue +43%- QCQUITMAN COUNTY EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATI6× · 2017–2024 · $53k · revenue +9%
ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC5× · 2018–2024 · $52k · revenue +125%
Funded once
- UPUNIVERSITY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHone grant, 2023 · $20k
- CLCOMMUNITY LEGAL CENTERone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue +5%
- CGCLL Global Research Foundationone grant, 2018 · $10k · revenue +7%
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 produce plays and encourage the arts by performance and educational programs.
Nashville public radio's mission is to be the most trusted & independent nashville voice, connecting our communities through non-partisan journalism, compelling storytelling, civil conversation and music discovery.
Support the research activities of the university of mississippi medical center
To serve our members and partners by improving the quality of life through regional economic prosperity.
The foundation accepts, manages, and disburses private support to the university of memphis.
To conserve the unique character of tennessee's natural and historic landscapes and sites for future generations.
In response to the love of god, the methodist rehabilitation center, is dedicated to the restoration and enhancement of the lives of those we serve. we are committed to excellence and leadership in the delivery of comprehensive…
The foundation is executing a strategic business plan that leverages the competitive strengths within the region while expanding the infrastructure, educational opportunities, and entrepreneur support needed to expand entrepreneurship.
To advance the ideals of limited government, free markets, and strong families by providing government officials, the media, and the public with information and perspective to help them understand and defend liberty.
Seeking to build relationships with diverse institutions around the state to build the power to effect political change in a non-partisan way while strengthening the institutions we engage with to help execute their institution's mission…
Memphis tomorrow is an association of ceos of memphis' largest businesses working to promote opportunity and quality of life for all memphians through collective action and public-private partnerships.
Mississippi state university foundation, inc. is a non-profit organization that assists mississippi state university in accomplishing its goals and mission by cultivating and soliciting private support and ensuring stewardship for all…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Children's Museum of Memphis Inc and the most unlike its peers is Panola County Community Chest Fund Inc. 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 4% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% 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.
74 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. 74 of the 121 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 Teach for America Inc ↗
- Who funds BALLET MEMPHIS CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds FRACTURED ATLAS INC ↗
- Who funds QUITMAN COUNTY EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATI ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds MISSISSIPPI WILDLIFE FISHERIES AND PARKS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds OPERA MEMPHIS INC ↗
- Who funds OVERTON PARK CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds MIFA CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds WILDLIFE MISSISSIPPI ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Dixon Gallery and Gardens ↗
- Who funds MID-SOUTH FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds CHURCH HEALTH CENTER OF MEMPHIS INC ↗
- Who funds LIBERTAS SCHOOL OF MEMPHIS ↗
- Who funds The Reclaimed Project ↗
- Who funds TENNESSEE JUSTICE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds OLE MISS ATHLETIC FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY LEGAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds CLL Global Research Foundation ↗
- Who funds WILLIAM CLIFF HEATON JR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Indiana University Foundation ↗
- Who funds Quitman County Economic Tourism & Development Inc ↗
- Who funds ARTSMEMPHIS ↗
- Who funds FIRST MARKS CEMETERY ASSN INC ↗
- Who funds HARWOOD CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CENTURY CLUB CHARITIES INC ↗
- Who funds Everystory ↗
- Who funds DOWN SYNDROME ASSOCIATION OF MEMPHIS ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF NORTHWEST MISSISSIPPI ↗
- Who funds PORTER-LEATH ↗
- Who funds THE BADDOUR CENTER 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: Community Foundation of Greater Memphis Inc · Thomas W Briggs Foundation Inc · Christian Community Foundation of Memphis · Plough Foundation · The Assisi Foundation of Memphis Inc · The Kemmons Wilson Family Foundation · Jr Hyde III Family Foundation · Belz Foundation · United Way of the Mid South · Rose Montgomery Johnston Family Foundation · Jewish Foundation of Memphis · The Day 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 Self 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.
- Center for Medicare Advocacy Inc — 63% of income from government
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 Self Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Self 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.