· Private foundation
The Allen Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $8k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $73k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ACTORS BRIDGE ENSEMBLE | $27,000 |
| SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK | $26,000 |
| GREENWOOD MUSIC CAMP | $20,000 |
| CHRIST CHURCH CATHEDRAL | $8,000 |
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 US giving — 81% of grant dollars ($438k). The need read here covers only this US portion; the 19% that went abroad ($105k) is mapped below.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 79% of your 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.
Beyond the US — 19% of all-years giving ($105k)
1 country, by the recipient’s country on the filing.
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. International giving is mapped by the recipient’s country from the same 990filings; comparable need data isn’t available at that grain.
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.
11 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2025, 7 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 FY2025, 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
- GMGreenwood Music Camp Inc3× · 2020–2025 · $56k · revenue +585%
- ABACTORS BRIDGE ENSEMBLE THEATER OF NASHVILLE INC2× · 2023–2025 · $43k · revenue +63%
- SPSOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC2× · 2017–2018 · $33k · revenue +10%
Funded once
- PVPIONEER VALLEY WALDORF SCHOOLone grant, 2017 · $17k
- IRInternational Rescue Committee INCone grant, 2022 · $15k · revenue -4%
- OCOASIS CENTER INCgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $6k · revenue +50%
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.
Nashville public radio's mission is to be the most trusted & independent nashville voice, connecting our communities through non-partisan journalism, compelling storytelling, civil conversation and music discovery.
Nashville bar association is organized to improve the practice of law through education, service & fellowship
To be north carolina's state orchestra, an orchestra achieving the highest level of artistic quality and performance standards, and embracing its dual legacies of statewide service and music education.
The tennessee justice center (tjc) advocates on behalf of low-income tennesseans in areas of public policy having the greatest impact on their health and welfare.
Tirrc is a statewide, immigrant and refugee-led collaboration. our mission is to build power, amplify our voices, and organize communities to advocate for our rights. our vision is a stronger, more inclusive tennessee where people of all…
In fulfillment of our mission to inspire a culture of understanding and discovery of our natural world through conservation, innovation and leadership, our goal is to build a first class zoo for middle tennessee and to develop a facility…
The mission of the humane society is to save and enhance the lives of pets through cooperative and innovative approaches to adoption, spay/neuter, sheltering and community engagement.
Legal aid of east tennessee provides legal representation, legal education, and other civil legal services for the low-income population in our community through advocacy of all types.
See Disclosure Above.
The Southern Center for Human Rights is working for equality, dignity, and justice for people impacted by the criminal legal system in the Deep South. SCHR fights for a world free from mass incarceration, the death penalty, the…
The Equal Justice Society (EJS) is transforming the nations consciousness on racethrough law, social science, and the arts. EJS works to dismantle structural andinstitutional racism to advance robust equal protection under the Fourteenth…
Arts & business council of greater nashville supports and promotes the arts by driving collaboration between arts and business that contribute to the creativity, vitality, and prosperity of greater nashville/the regions/the city.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is University School of Nashville and the most unlike its peers is International Rescue Committee Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 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. 10 of the 19 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 Greenwood Music Camp Inc ↗
- Who funds ACTORS BRIDGE ENSEMBLE THEATER OF NASHVILLE INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE ↗
- Who funds International Rescue Committee INC ↗
- Who funds FRANKIE'S FRIENDS INC ↗
- Who funds NASHVILLE HUMANE ASSOCIATION AKA NASHVILLE HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds OASIS CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds ST MARYS SEWANEE A CENTER FOR SPIRITUAL ↗
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 Boult Family Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 The Allen 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Allen Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Allen 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.