· Private foundation
Shades of Light Foundation
Its FY2020 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 FY2017–2020.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2020
- $50k–250k1 grant · $67k
- $250k+1 grant · $610k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Morgan Stanley Global impact funding trust inc | $610,427 |
| MORGAN STANLEY GLOBAL IMPACT FUNDING TRUST INC | $67,039 |
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 (FY17–19, $8k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 6%. 97% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +74% since the first grant, against +48% for the ones you funded once.
8 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2020, 7 since wound down.
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 FY2020, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- CYCreate Your Dreams Inc3× · 2017–2019 · $18k · revenue +28%
- CHCOVENANT HOUSE GEORGIA INC3× · 2017–2019 · $7k · revenue +95%
- AJATLANTA JEWISH FILM SOCIETY INC3× · 2017–2019 · $5k · revenue +193%
Funded once
- GCGeorgia Campaign for Adolescent Power and Potential Incgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $4k · revenue +29%
- YIyouthSpark Incone grant, 2018 · $2k · revenue +3%
- FMForget Me Not Childrens Servicesgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $2k · revenue +50%
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.
Summer Educational camp for children.
Dedicated to the creation, presentation and advancement of contemporary art through its exhibitions, educational programming and studio art program.
The Georgia Symphony Orchestra GSO is a non-profit corporation organized for the purposes of providing significant cultural and educational value to the north-metro Atlanta community. The organization performs public concerts through our…
Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Atlanta's mission is to protect and promote the civil and human rights of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in Georgia and the Southeast through policy advocacy, legal services,…
Theatre company
To foster and ensure a vibrant greater Atlanta Jewish community by providing programs and services of distinction that attract, involve, and inspire meaningful connections and promote Jewish values.
to showcase contemporary art and culture of the African Diaspora
To transform lives.
Present world-class mixed ensemble chamber music to a broad audience, contribute to the future of chamber music through commissioning of new works
Mosaic Georgia's mission is to take action and guide change for the safety, health, and justice of children and adults impacted by sexual violence. It provides a coordinated, trauma-informed response, including crisis services, medical…
The SouthEastern Young Artists brings artists and community together by putting on performances for the public. Additionally artists will go into local schools and education institutions to do workshops around music and social emotional…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Atlanta Jewish Film Society Inc and the most unlike its peers is Covenant House Georgia Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 16 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 Create Your Dreams Inc ↗
- Who funds COVENANT HOUSE GEORGIA INC ↗
- Who funds ATLANTA JEWISH FILM SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds HAMBIDGE CENTER FOR CREATIVE ARTS AND SCIENCES INC ↗
- Who funds Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Power and Potential Inc ↗
- Who funds LIMMUD ATLANTA SOUTHEAST ↗
- Who funds youthSpark Inc ↗
- Who funds Forget Me Not Childrens Services ↗
- Who funds NERANENAH INC ↗
- Who funds SECOND HELPINGS ATLANTA INC ↗
- Who funds THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART OF GEORGIA INC ↗
- Who funds SUNRISE DAY CAMPS ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds FREE BIKES 4 KIDZ OF ATLANTA CO ↗
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 Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta Inc · The Imlay Foundation Inc · Jewish Federation of Greater Atlanta Inc · The Arthur M Blank Family Foundation · THDF II Inc DBA The Home Depot Foundation & Homer Fund · United Way of Greater Atlanta Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Shades of Light 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.