How much does Speller Foundation give?

Speller Foundation reported 12 grants totaling $22,355 in its FY2026 IRS filing. It funded between 8 and 15 organizations a year over FY2019 to FY2025.

What does Speller Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2026, its largest causes are Philanthropy (39%), Religion (38%), Human Services (8%).

Who are Speller Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2026: Jewish Community Center of Nashville ($6k), Abe's Garden ($5k), Vanderbilt University ($3k).

Does Speller Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2025, 38% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Speller Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

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

Where is Speller Foundation based?

Speller Foundation is based in TN.

Speller Foundation

Speller Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Speller Foundation

Its FY2026 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$22k

Granted FY2026still arriving

Grants FY2026still arriving

States reached

$5k

Largest

01What it funds

0186% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Philanthropy$175kReligion$172kHuman Services$38kEducation$9kArts & Culture$3kRecreation & Sports$2kAnimals$2kHealth$1kOther$0

02FY2026 · 12 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$1,000

Median grant

States reached

$523k

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
Individual grant recipient	$5,475
ABE'S GARDEN	$5,000
Individual grant recipient	$3,600
RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES	$3,500
JEWISH FEDERATION OF	$1,650
BELMONT UNIVERSITY	$1,000
GORDON JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER	$750
NASHVILLE PUBLIC RADIO	$500
WEST END SYNAGOGUE	$500
Individual grant recipient	$180
MAD MAVERICKS BASEBALL ACADEMY	$100
GILDAS CLUB	$100

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 (FY17–26, $7k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 92% 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.

Which US states its grants reach

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.

96%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$458k · 16 repeat orgs$17k to everyone else

16 repeat relationships: 7 still active in FY2026, 9 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2026 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$458k

$11k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+34%

+58%

Still filing today

38%

53%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2026, 70% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $7k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EducationHealthHuman ServicesFood & NutritionHousing & ShelterArts & CultureOther

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

JC
JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF NASHVILLE
4× · 2017–2026 · $6k · revenue +34%
Vanderbilt University
2× · 2019–2020 · $3k · revenue +57%
US
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE
4× · 2018–2024 · $2k · revenue +31%

Funded once

UW
US WOMENS AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP
one grant, 2018 · $2k
NZ
NASHVILLE ZOO INCgraduated
one grant, 2021 · $2k · revenue +42%
IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2023 · $500

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.

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

Northeast College of Health Sciences

Northeast college of health sciences (the college) is committed to academic excellence, leadership, and professional best practices in the health sciences.

Education

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

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

President and Fellows of Harvard College

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

Education

Boston Architectural College

The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.

—

National Association of College and University Attorneys

To advance the practice of higher education attorneys for the benefit of the institutions they serve.

—

Neurology Associates of Stony Brook University Faculty Practice Corp

Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.

Health

Brevard College Corporation

Brevard college is committed to an experiential liberal arts education that encourages personal growth and inspires artistic, intellectual, and social action.

Education

Wilson College

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

Education

Jefferson Scholars Foundation

The jefferson scholars foundation (foundation) provides academic merit-based scholarship, fellowship and professorship support to students and faculty at the university of virginia (uva).

Philanthropy

The Branson School

To provide an academically exceptional education to students grade 9 through 12 in a warm, supportive, and nurturing environment.

Education

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is University School of Nashville; the most unlike its peers is Feeding America. 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

27 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 27 of the 55 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)

27/27

Grantees still filing

25/27

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$448,836Education$11,400Human Services$6,700Housing & Shelter$5,000Animals$1,500Health$1,150Food & Nutrition$650

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.

Raymond James Charitable Endowment FundFL14.2× affinity8 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee Inc · The John and Heidi Hassenfeld Family Foundation · The Joel C & Bernice W Gordon Family Foundation · Memorial Foundation Inc · The US Charitable Gift Trust · Shell USA Company Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · The Ayco Charitable Foundation · Jewish Communal Fund

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 Speller Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Speller Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

5get no government money at all

2report 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.

Play a game based on Speller’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