· Public charity
Ted & Drama Russell Family Foundation C/O East Tn Foundation
To carry out charitable, educational, and religious purposes of the supported organization, east tennessee foundation
Read this first · the figures below need context
100% of Ted & Drama Russell Family Foundation C/O East Tn Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to East Tennessee Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2023, the last year Ted & Drama Russell Family Foundation C/O East Tn Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 6 organizations, $4M. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- $10k–50k1 grant · $25k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $300k
- $250k+3 grants · $3.6M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CARSON-NEWMAN UNIVERSITY | $2,233,900 |
| EMERALD YOUTH FOUNDATION | $750,000 |
| TENNESSEE WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY | $600,000 |
| COMPASSION MINISTRIES | $150,000 |
| MISSION OF HOPE INC | $100,000 |
| YOKE YOUTH MINISTRIES | $50,000 |
| EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
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 (FY23–23, $150k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 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.
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 +31% since the first grant, against +7% for the ones you funded once.
8 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2023, 4 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call). Read against FY2023, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $200k 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
- EYEMERALD YOUTH FOUNDATION3× · 2020–2023 · $970k · revenue +31%
- TWTENNESSEE WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY2× · 2021–2023 · $624k · revenue +6%
- KAKNOX AREA RESCUE MINISTRIES INC4× · 2017–2021 · $500k · revenue +198%
Funded once
- CCCROWN COLLEGEone grant, 2019 · $500k · revenue +16%
- TLTHE LOVE KITCHEN INCone grant, 2021 · $150k · revenue -9%
- HRHELEN ROSS MCNABB FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $100k · revenue +88%
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.
King's academy is a pre-k-8th grade independent christian school in nashville, tennessee, providing a classically inspired education to a racially and socioeconomically balanced student body.
We prepare students in our christian academic community to excel as thoughtful, resourceful, and responsible citizens with a passion for serving god, the church, and the world. we accomplish this through excellent teaching, high…
Educate preschool through twelfth grade children in a Christian environment while developing them spiritually,academically, emotionally, and physically with Jesus Christ as their standard and the Bible as their foundation.
Reach out to the homeless, hungry, hurting and hopeless throughout north alabama and southern tennessee with the good news of the gospel of jesus christ.
To provide food and clothing for the residents in madison, tennessee and surrounding davidson county residents that are in need. we also provide sack lunches to the homeless in the area.
Christ-centered school educating children of diverse racial & socioeconomic backgrounds by establishing a biblical worldview & preparing each child to flourish academically, emotionally, socially & spiritually.
To prepare students to lead and serve with distinction while representing christ and his kingdom in all areas of home, church, society and culture.
The mission of christian academy knoxville is to partner with christian families to provide a comprehensive college preparatory education from a biblical worldview in a christ-centered environment.
To educate and prepare students for biblical gospel ministry as educators, pastors, and foreign missionaries.
The organization engages in evangelistic and discipleship ministries in rural churches in eastern kentucky.
To partner with families in providing students a christ-centered and academically challenging education equipping them with a biblical worldview as they grow in understandings, attitudes, skills, and in favor with god and man.
Union university provides christ-centered education that promotes excellence and character development in service to church and society.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is East Tennessee Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Yoke Youth Ministries. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
20 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. 20 of the 21 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 CARSON-NEWMAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds EMERALD YOUTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TENNESSEE WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CROWN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds KNOX AREA RESCUE MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds MISSION OF HOPE ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK OF EAST TENNESSEE ↗
- Who funds EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE CHANGE CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE LOVE KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds COMPASSION MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds HELEN ROSS MCNABB FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PELLISSIPPI STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds Yoke Youth Ministries ↗
- Who funds Covenant Health Foundation ↗
- Who funds IMPACT INVESTING CHARITABLE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SOAR YOUTH MINISTRIES INC THRIVE LONSDALE ↗
- Who funds FEEDING THE ORPHANS INC ↗
- Who funds HOSPITALITY PANTRIES 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: East Tennessee Foundation · Stowers Machinery Foundation Inc · Haslam Family Foundation Inc · United Way of Greater Knoxvilleinc · Thompson Charitable Foundation · The Melrose Foundation · Pya Foundation · Variety of Eastern Tennessee · The Clayton Family Foundation · Lawson Family Foundation · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Score International Inc
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 Ted & Drama Russell Family Foundation C/O East Tn 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.
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How do I get to Ted & Drama Russell Family Foundation C/O East Tn Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Ted & Drama Russell Family Foundation C/O East Tn 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.