Skip to content
Plinth
Foundation Dossiers
Plinth

· Private foundation

Southern Company Charitable Foundation Inc

Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$21M
Granted FY2024still arriving
27
Grants FY2024still arriving
6
States reached
$7.0M
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your edgeRead
04Your fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What you fund
0192% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2024.

Education$71MEmployment$18MHuman Services$3.4MRecreation & Sports$2.5MCommunity Improvement$2.4MArts & Culture$2.2MPhilanthropy$2.0MInternational$1.4MReligion$1.0MOther$12M
02FY2024 · 27 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

  • $10k–50k8 grants · $155k
  • $50k–250k6 grants · $675k
  • $250k+13 grants · $20M
$200,000
Median grant
6
States reached
$98M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
GEORGIA TECH FOUNDATION INC$7,000,000
GEORGIA TECH FOUNDATION INC$4,000,000
AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS$1,000,000
EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE FOUNDATION INC$1,000,000
GEORGIA TECH FOUNDATION INC$1,000,000
CHILDREN'S HEALTHCARE OF ATLANTA FOUNDATION$1,000,000
UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA FOUNDATION$1,000,000
EBENEZER BUILDING FOUNDATION$1,000,000
PARK PRIDE INC$1,000,000
MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC$500,000
AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS$500,000
BONTERRA TECH LLC$416,665
COUNCIL ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE$300,000
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION$200,000
AMERICAN JUNIOR GOLF ASSOCIATION$150,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY17–24, $3.4M) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, 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.

area typical 11%EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE FOUNDATION INC: $1.0M → 11%MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC: $500k → 24%NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE INC: $250k → 17%MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC: $21k → 24%MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC: $20k → 24%MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC: $15k → 24%MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC: $12k → 24%AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS: $1.0M → 14%MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC: $12k → 24%AMERICAN NATIONAL RED CROSS: $500k → 14%MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC: $9k → 24%BERT'S BIG ADVENTURE INC: $2k → 13%MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC: $5k → 24%NEW AMERICAN PATHWAYS: $10k → 14%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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

AK
NH
WA
MN
IL
MI
NY
MA
IA
IN
OH
PA
NJ
CA
CO
NE
MO
KY
VA
MD
AZ
KS
AR
TN
NC
SC
DC
HI
OK
LA
MS
AL
GA
TX
FL

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.

04

Where the work is directed

The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.

About 6% of Southern Company Charitable Foundation Inc’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. Read by recipient address, 73% of the giving stays in GA; read by stated purpose it is 71% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.

Southern Company Charitable Foundation Inclessmore of its giving
Placed by recipient address · 2.6% directed abroad (not shown)

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

88%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$101M · 109 repeat orgs$14M to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +49% since the first grant, against +22% for the ones you funded once.

109 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2024, 95 since wound down; 10 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

109
114

Total granted

$101M
$8.9M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+49%
+22%

Still filing today

83%
64%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 76% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5.0M went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
EducationArts & CulturePhilanthropyHuman ServicesInternationalRecreation & SportsOther

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

  • GEORGIA TECH FOUNDATION INC
    8× · 2017–2024 · $53M · revenue +116%
  • EU
    Emory University
    5× · 2017–2022 · $3.5M · revenue +80%
  • TU
    THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA FOUNDATION
    7× · 2017–2024 · $1.4M · revenue +112%

Funded once

  • BJ
    Bobby Jones Golf Course Foundation Inc
    one grant, 2017 · $1.0M · revenue -51%
  • CF
    C F FOUNDATION INC
    one grant, 2023 · $1.0M · revenue -3%
  • HU
    HAMPTON UNIVERSITY
    one grant, 2020 · $500k · revenue +19%

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

04Your field

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.

1
Furman University

The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.

Education
2
Augustana College

Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…

Education
3
Lehigh University

The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…

Education
4
University of New Haven

The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…

Education
5
The George Washington University

The mission of the george washington university (gw) is to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings…

Education
6
The Trustees of Princeton University

Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…

Education
7
Wilson College

Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.

Education
8
Trinity University

Trinity university is an independent co-educational university whose mission is excellence in the interrelated areas of teaching, research and services.

Education
9
University of Virginia Investment Management Company

The university of virginia investment management company (uvimco) is organized to invest funds on behalf of the rector and visitors of the university of virginia (the university or uva) and university-associated organizations (uaos).

Education
10
George Fox University

George fox university, a christ centered community, prepares students spiritually, academically, and professionally to think with clarity, act with integrity, and serve with passion.

Education
11
Columbia College

Columbia college improves lives by providing quality education to both traditional and nontraditional students, helping them achieve their true potential.

Education
12
President and Fellows of Harvard College

Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.

Education

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Georgia Tech Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is United Youth Adult Conference 2. 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.

← shrinkinggrowing →↓ leaning in → pulling backsteadyPolicy Research and AdvocacyYouth Sports ProgramsElementary Literacy TutoringSenior Support ServicesIndependent K-12 SchoolsLocal History MuseumsEnvironmental Conservation …Cancer Support ServicesCommunity College Foundatio…Faith-Based Liberal Arts Co…Community Foundations
the sector your giving your giving is ahead of the sector the sector’s ahead of you· dot size = how much the theme matters to each side
Ordered by the change in your giving — leaning in on top, pulling back at the bottom. The bar between the two dots is how out of step you are with the sector. Hover any row for detail.

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 57 years old; the field is 11. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number28%0%<5yr17%3%5–10yr20%8%10–20yr14%17%20–35yr9%18%35–55yr13%54%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value28%0%<5yr17%10%5–10yr20%23%10–20yr14%4%20–35yr9%3%35–55yr13%59%55yr+

The field is 28% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 19% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
0.0%0/194
the rest of the field
19%
10,947/58,107

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.

05the grantee network

182 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. 182 of the 242 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.

9
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
22
Early backer (in before they grew)
180/182
Grantees still filing
141/182
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

GEORGIA TECH FOUNDATION INC — $53,247,194 · EducationGEORGIA TECH FOUNDATION INCINROADS INC — $7,000,000 · EducationINROADS INCEmory University — $3,530,650 · Education+71 more — $6,893,227 · Education+71 morePropel Education — $17,500,000 · EmploymentPropel EducationCHILDREN'S HEALTHCARE OF ATLANTA FOUNDATION — $5,000,000 · OtherCHILDREN'S HEALT…C F FOUNDATION INC — $1,000,000 · OtherC F FOUNDATION I…THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR GREATER ATLANTA INC — $550,000 · OtherNUCLEAR THREAT INITIATIVE INC — $600,000 · OtherEBENEZER BUILDING FOUNDATION INC — $1,000,000 · OtherEBENEZER BUILDIN…COUNCIL ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE INC — $1,000,000 · OtherCOUNCIL ON CRIMI…+96 more — $7,264,798 · Other+96 moreAmerican National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches — $1,500,000 · Human ServicesEMERGENCY ASSISTANCE FOUNDATION INC — $1,000,000 · Human ServicesMississippi State University Foundation Inc — $593,700 · Human ServicesNATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE INC — $250,000 · Human Services+3 more — $71,500 · Human ServicesPARK PRIDE INC — $1,000,000 · Recreation & SportsBobby Jones Golf Course Foundation Inc — $1,000,000 · Recreation & SportsAmerican Junior Golf Association Inc — $300,000 · Recreation & SportsNORTHSIDE YOUTH ORGANIZATION INC — $200,000 · Recreation & Sports+2 more — $28,900 · Recreation & SportsGROVE PARK FOUNDATION INC — $2,250,000 · Community ImprovementMartin Luther King Sr Community Resources Collaborative — $100,000 · Community ImprovementSMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION — $1,000,000 · Arts & CultureNATIONAL CENTER FOR CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS INC — $625,000 · Arts & CultureTHE MEMORIAL FOUNDATION INC — $250,000 · Arts & CultureNATIONAL LINKS TRUST — $250,000 · Arts & Culture+4 more — $70,000 · Arts & Culture
Education$70,671,071Employment$17,500,000Other$16,414,798Human Services$3,415,200Recreation & Sports$2,528,900Community Improvement$2,350,000Arts & Culture$2,195,000

Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetGEORGIA TECH FOUNDATION INC — $53,247,194 over 8y, 5.5% of budgetPropel Education — $17,500,000 over 2y, 59% of budgetINROADS INC — $7,000,000 over 2y, 31% of budgetEmory University — $3,530,650 over 5y, 0.1% of budgetGROVE PARK FOUNDATION INC — $2,250,000 over 3y, 69% of budgetAmerican National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches — $1,500,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA FOUNDATION — $1,413,430 over 7y, 0.4% of budgetPARK PRIDE INC — $1,000,000 over 1y, 13% of budgetEBENEZER BUILDING FOUNDATION INC — $1,000,000 over 1y, 40% of budgetCOUNCIL ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE INC — $1,000,000 over 3y, 7.5% of budgetSMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION — $1,000,000 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetBobby Jones Golf Course Foundation Inc — $1,000,000 over 1y, 7.6% of budgetEMERGENCY ASSISTANCE FOUNDATION INC — $1,000,000 over 1y, 1.3% of budgetC F FOUNDATION INC — $1,000,000 over 1y, 7.0% of budgetMOREHOUSE COLLEGE — $922,080 over 6y, 0.2% of budgetAUBURN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION — $698,226 over 7y, 0.2% of budgetNATIONAL CENTER FOR CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS INC — $625,000 over 3y, 2.7% of budgetNUCLEAR THREAT INITIATIVE INC — $600,000 over 6y, 0.8% of budgetMississippi State University Foundation Inc — $593,700 over 8y, 0.6% of budgetTHE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR GREATER ATLANTA INC — $550,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetALABAMA A&M UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION — $501,100 over 2y, 53% of budgetSpelman College — $500,325 over 4y, 0.3% of budgetHAMPTON UNIVERSITY — $500,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetAQUATIC RESEARCH FOUNDATION — $500,000 over 1y, 6.6% of budgetTuskegee University — $356,100 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetTHE ISAKSON INITIATIVE INC — $350,000 over 1y, 32% of budgetMiles College Inc — $350,000 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetRUST COLLEGE — $345,000 over 1y, 2.0% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI FOUNDATION — $326,300 over 4y, 0.4% of budgetCOOPERATIVE FOR ASSISTANCE AND RELIEF EVERYWHERE INC — $320,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetTHE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE FOUNDATION INC — $302,000 over 5y, 0.2% of budgetAmerican Junior Golf Association Inc — $300,000 over 2y, 0.8% of budgetTougaloo College — $280,000 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetTHE MEMORIAL FOUNDATION INC — $250,000 over 1y, 6.7% of budgetFoundation for the Defense of Democracies Inc — $250,000 over 3y, 0.6% of budgetAlbany State University Foundation Inc — $250,000 over 1y, 7.8% of budgetPURPOSE BUILT COMMUNITIES FOUNDATIONINC — $250,000 over 1y, 4.9% of budgetNATIONAL LINKS TRUST — $250,000 over 2y, 1.0% of budgetNATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE INC — $250,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetATLANTA VOLUNTEER LAWYERS FOUNDATION IN — $225,000 over 5y, 1.4% of budgetClark Atlanta University Inc — $220,250 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetNORTHSIDE YOUTH ORGANIZATION INC — $200,000 over 2y, 2.4% of budgetALABAMA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC — $200,000 over 1y, 8.2% of budgetTalladega College — $150,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetATLANTIC COUNCIL OF THE UNITED STATES INC — $150,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetFORT VALLEY STATE COLLEGE NATIONAL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION INC — $145,000 over 1y, 59% of budgetFISK UNIVERSITY — $120,300 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetStillman College — $105,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budget
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.

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.

Georgia Power Foundat…Lettie Pate Whitehead…Ibm International Fou…The Community Foundat…Alabama Power Foundat…Tom Joyner Foundation…National Collegiate A…The Northrop Grumman …Enterprise Holdings F…Strada Education Foun…Watson-Brown Foundati…The Ayco Charitable F…
Georgia Power Foundation IncGA61.7× affinity35 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Georgia Power Foundation Inc · Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation Inc · Ibm International Foundation · The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta Inc · Alabama Power Foundation Inc · Tom Joyner Foundation Inc · National Collegiate Athletic Association · The Northrop Grumman Foundation · Enterprise Holdings Foundation · Strada Education Foundation Inc · Watson-Brown Foundation Inc · The Ayco Charitable 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 Southern Company Charitable Foundation Inc 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.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 70%5%19%42%75%your share of their income ↑0%23%45%68%90%share of the org’s income from government →median 35%
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology — 35% of income from government
  • Rollins College — 0% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
7get no government money at all
33report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–90%
typical government reliance, FY20–25

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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Southern Company Charitable Foundation Inc?

Find your warmest path to Southern Company Charitable Foundation Inc 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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 242 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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 camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home
State money flows
the interactive map of money crossing state lines