· Private foundation
Shelton Family Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k15 grants · $75k
- $10k–50k15 grants · $315k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $486k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FOOD BANK OF ABILENE INC | $166,000 |
| SALVATION ARMY & ITS COMPONENTS | $100,000 |
| MCMURRY UNIVERSITY | $100,000 |
| ABILENE HOPE HAVEN INC | $60,000 |
| KENLEY SCHOOL | $60,000 |
| RESCUE THE ANIMALS | $45,000 |
| NATIONAL CENTER FOR CHILDREN'S ILLUSTRATED LITERATURE | $42,000 |
| LOVE AND CARE MINISTRIES | $30,000 |
| ABILENE CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY | $25,000 |
| RESTORED HOPE MINISTRIES INC | $25,000 |
| SALVATION ARMY & ITS COMPONENTS | $25,000 |
| BETTY HARDWICK CENTER | $25,000 |
| SERENITY FOUNDATION | $16,000 |
| BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF ABILENE INC | $15,000 |
| CAMP ABLE | $14,500 |
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 (FY18–25, $588k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 99% 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 +16% since the first grant, against +4% for the ones you funded once.
79 repeat relationships — 27 still active in FY2025, 52 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $35k 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
- KSKenley School Inc8× · 2018–2025 · $506k · revenue +12%
- NCNational Center for Childrens Illustrated Literat8× · 2018–2025 · $350k · revenue +67%
- FBFood Bank of West Central Texas8× · 2018–2025 · $320k · revenue +51%
Funded once
- CSCFA - SHELTON FAMILY FOUNDATION DAFone grant, 2018 · $500k
- FBFIRST BAPTIST CHURCHone grant, 2021 · $100k
- AYABILENE YOUTH SPORTS AUTHORITYgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $50k · revenue +47%
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.
Pregnancy Resources' mission is to inspire hope and unconditionally love everyone we serve by empowering them to thrive through compassionate support and positive solutions.
Committed to supporting displaced single mothers in Fort Bend County by providing housing assistance and wraparound services.
The WTFB exists to collect, purchase, and distribute food to feed the hungry in 19 counties in West Texas in partnership with volunteers and community organizations and to educate these partners and the public at large about the real face…
RAISE Texas advances equitable policies and programs that foster financial security and economic mobility for low- and moderate-income Texans. We equip, innovate and advocate to reduce disparities, remove barriers and build opportunities…
To ensure that the student body experiences balanced intellectual, psychological, social and spiritual development, aimed at enabling them to become active productive members of society where they live and work.
The mission of the Abilene Industrial Foundation is to promote the growth, development, and diversity of the economy in and around Abilene, Texas.
to prevent blindness and preserve sight through education, certified vision screening and training, advocacy, research and community and patient service programs
To provide family services and to provide residential child care for dependent children where there is a need to assist children and families disrupted by problems.
Care, hope, and support for all when illness threatens life.
To operate a residential mental health and substance abuse facility that will serve men with addictive disorders by providing residential accomodations, substance abuse treatment including individual, group, and family counseling,…
Support operation of Abilene Boys Ranch, Inc.
The Organizations mission is to bring unity and efficiency to investigations of child abuse through the use of a multi-disciplinary team and, thereby, to provide the best possible services to victims of child abuse and their families.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Christian Homes of Abilene Inc and the most unlike its peers is New Beginnings Big Country. 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 34 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 27% 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 10% 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.
82 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. 82 of the 111 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 Abilene Education Foundation ↗
- Who funds Kenley School Inc ↗
- Who funds National Center for Childrens Illustrated Literat ↗
- Who funds Food Bank of West Central Texas ↗
- Who funds BCFS Health and Human Services ↗
- Who funds Rescue the Animals Inc ↗
- Who funds MCMURRY UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Restored Hope Ministries Inc ↗
- Who funds ABILENE CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE TSTC FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF ABILENE INC ↗
- Who funds CELEBRATE FOREVER FAMILIES ↗
- Who funds Abilene Hope Haven Inc ↗
- Who funds Disability Resources Inc ↗
- Who funds HOUSES FOR HEALING INC ↗
- Who funds NEW BEGINNINGS BIG COUNTRY ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds HARDIN-SIMMONS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF ABILENE ↗
- Who funds Abilene Philharmonic Association ↗
- Who funds NOAH PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds ABILENE ARTS ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds The West Texas Rehabilitation Center ↗
- Who funds GRACE MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds Love & Care Ministries ↗
- Who funds SIGHT SAVERS OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds Day Nursery of Abilene Inc ↗
- Who funds Abilene Chamber of Commerce Foundation ↗
- Who funds Habitat for Humanity Abilene Inc ↗
- Who funds Faithworks of Abilene Inc ↗
- Who funds Christian Service Center of Abilene ↗
- Who funds HENDRICK HOME FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds ABILENE YOUTH SPORTS AUTHORITY ↗
- Who funds Abilene Boys Ranch 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: Dian Graves Owen Foundation · Community Foundation of Abilene · The Legett Foundation · Barber Foundation · Greathouse Foundation · Kickapoo Springs Foundation · The Karakin Foundation · United Way of Abilene Inc · The Massey Family Charitable Trust · The Robison Excelsior Foundation · American Electric Power Foundation · Directors 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 Shelton Family 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Shelton Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Shelton Family 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.