How much does Shelton Family Foundation give?

Shelton Family Foundation reported 35 grants totaling $875,900 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 29 and 63 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Shelton Family Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2018 to FY2025, its largest causes are Education (29%), Human Services (24%), Philanthropy (10%).

Who are Shelton Family Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2018 to FY2025: Abilene Education Foundation ($991k), Kenley School Inc ($506k), National Center for Childrens Illustrated Literat ($350k).

Does Shelton Family Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 14% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Shelton Family Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as Shelton Family Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Dian Graves Owen Foundation, Community Foundation of Abilene, The Legett Foundation.

Where is Shelton Family Foundation based?

Shelton Family Foundation is based in TX.

Shelton Family Foundation

Shelton Family Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Shelton Family Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$876k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$166k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2018 to 2025.

Education$2.2MHuman Services$1.8MPhilanthropy$727kArts & Culture$640kFood & Nutrition$410kHealth$393kHousing & Shelter$365kAnimals$313kOther$0

02FY2025 · 35 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k15 grants · $75k
$10k–50k15 grants · $315k
$50k–250k5 grants · $486k

$10,000

Median grant

States reached

$41M

Total assets

Largest grants
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

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its 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 its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

87%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$6.4M · 79 repeat orgs$942k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +16% since the first grant, against +4% for those 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

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$6.4M

$907k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+16%

+4%

Still filing today

81%

56%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $35k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Human ServicesArts & CultureEducationHealthAnimalsHousing & ShelterOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

KS
Kenley School Inc
8× · 2018–2025 · $506k · revenue +12%
NC
National Center for Childrens Illustrated Literat
8× · 2018–2025 · $350k · revenue +67%
FB
Food Bank of West Central Texas
8× · 2018–2025 · $320k · revenue +31%

Funded once

CS
CFA - SHELTON FAMILY FOUNDATION DAF
one grant, 2018 · $500k
FB
FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH
one grant, 2021 · $100k
AB
Abilene Boys Ranch Inc
one grant, 2018 · $50k · revenue +3%

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Pregnancy Resources of Abilene Inc

Pregnancy Resources' mission is to inspire hope and unconditionally love everyone we serve by empowering them to thrive through compassionate support and positive solutions.

Civil Rights

Abigail's Place

Committed to supporting displaced single mothers in Fort Bend County by providing housing assistance and wraparound services.

Housing & Shelter

West Texas Food Bank

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

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…

Human Services

Texas College

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.

Education

Abilene Industrial Foundation

The mission of the Abilene Industrial Foundation is to promote the growth, development, and diversity of the economy in and around Abilene, Texas.

—

Prevent Blindness Texas

to prevent blindness and preserve sight through education, certified vision screening and training, advocacy, research and community and patient service programs

—

Central Texas Children's Home

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.

Human Services

Hospice of Wichita Falls Inc

Care, hope, and support for all when illness threatens life.

Human Services

Abilene Restoration Ministries dba Nehemiah Abilene

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,…

Health

Abilene Boys Ranch Foundation

Support operation of Abilene Boys Ranch, Inc.

—

Childrens Advocacy Center of West Texas 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.

Crime & Legal

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Christian Homes of Abilene Inc; 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.

04the grantee network

82 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 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.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

81/82

Grantees still filing

58/82

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$3,002,160Education$2,053,550Human Services$1,089,050Arts & Culture$567,475Food & Nutrition$342,868Health$258,546Animals$257,500

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Dian Graves Owen FoundationTX125.7× affinity59 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

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

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Shelton Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Shelton Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

26report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

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.

Play a game based on Shelton Family’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home