· Public charity
Smart Growth America
SMART GROWTH AMERICA envisions a country where no matter where you live, or who you are, you can enjoy living in a place that is healthy, prosperous, and resilient.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GREATER GREATER WASHINGTON | $355,649 |
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 (FY17–17, $81k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 14% of Smart Growth America’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 +109% since the first grant, against +25% for the ones you funded once.
11 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2023, 10 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 FY2023, 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
- GGGreater Greater Washington6× · 2018–2023 · $811k · revenue +736% · 39% of their budget
FUSE Corps2× · 2019–2020 · $350k · revenue +86%- AFALLIANCE FOR A JUST SOCIETY2× · 2021–2022 · $225k · revenue +109%
Funded once
- IGINTEGRAL GROUP CONSULTING LLCone grant, 2018 · $185k
- MRMINNEAPOLIS REGIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCEgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $83k · revenue +25%
- CACONEXION AMERICASone grant, 2017 · $71k · revenue -22%
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.
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
Create a more accessible, sustainable, prosperous and livable national capital region by being a discussion forum, expert resource, issue advocate, and catalyst for action.
The minnesota chamber of commerce proactively leads the business community statewide to: advance pro-business, responsible minnesota public policy that creates jobs and grows the econony; provde member services to address evolving business…
The association of washington cities builds connections between our state's diverse cities and towns, while providing our members with the support needed to thrive through delivery of data-driven education, nationally recognized pooling…
The minnesota business partnership's mission is to maintain a high quality of life for all minnesotans by ensuring that the state's economy remains strong, globally competitive and its prospects for growth bright by working with elected…
Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
Common future is a network of pioneering leaders across the u.s. and canada who work deeply within their communities to create alternative approaches to business, philanthropy, and investing. we envision an economy that has transitioned…
We identify shared opportunities and core challenges and offer solutions to the region's most critical issues including skills and talent, regional mobility, infrastructure and inclusive economic growth.
The alliance is a coalition of community-based organizations and advocacy groups with a mission to build power across the intersections of geography, race, culture, and issues in the twin cities region to eliminate systems of oppression…
MCF is a vibrant philanthropic community connecting, strengthening and mobilizing the power of philanthropy to advance prosperity and equity.
Mid-city community advocacy network works to build a safe, productive, and healthy community for the residents of city heights and greater san diego through collaboration, advocacy, and organizing.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Global Philanthropy Partnership and the most unlike its peers is Conservation Law Foundation 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 24 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) — 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.
23 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. 23 of the 36 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 Greater Greater Washington ↗
- Who funds FUSE Corps ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE FOR A JUST SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL PHILANTHROPY PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds CONSERVATION LAW FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MULTIPLIER ↗
- Who funds MINNEAPOLIS REGIONAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ↗
- Who funds WALKSANDIEGO ↗
- Who funds CONEXION AMERICAS ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds APANO COMMUNITIES UNITED FUND ↗
- Who funds Central Indiana Community Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds URBAN SUSTAINABILITY DIRECTORS NETWORK ↗
- Who funds JEFFERSON STREET UNITED MERCHANTS PARTNERSHIP CDC ↗
- Who funds CONSERVATION MINNESOTA ↗
- Who funds ST PAUL TRANSPORTATION MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATION ↗
- Who funds WIREGRASS MUSEUM OF ART INC ↗
- Who funds Faith in Indiana ↗
- Who funds Kheprw Institute dba KI NuMedia CCFI ↗
- Who funds OASIS CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds SAINT PAUL AREA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Gehlorg Inc dba Gehl Institute ↗
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 Energy Foundation · National Recreation and Park Association · The McKnight Foundation · United States Energy Foundation · The Kresge Foundation · AARP · The Bloomberg Family Foundation Inc · Surdna Foundation Inc · Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc · New Venture Fund · Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation Inc · The Robert Wood Johnson 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 Smart Growth America 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.