· Private foundation
The Alton Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2022.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2022
- Under $10k2 grants · $1k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $25k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA FOUNDATN | $25,000 |
| MADISON VALLEY RANCHLANDS GROUP | $1,000 |
| MADISON CO FAIRGROUNDS IMPROV FOUND | $200 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–22) land where the poverty rate runs at 25%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 90% 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.
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.
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 +39% since the first grant, against +12% for the ones you funded once.
14 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2022, 11 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 FY2022, 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
- MVMADISON VALLEY RANCHLANDS GROUP6× · 2017–2022 · $6k · revenue +39%
- MVMADISON VALLEY MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION4× · 2017–2020 · $5k · revenue +224%
- SOSTAR of Coastal Georgia Inc2× · 2017–2021 · $600 · revenue +2%
Funded once
- CACENTRAL ASIA INSTITUTEone grant, 2017 · $1k · revenue -39%
- CMCAMP MAKE A DREAMone grant, 2017 · $1k
- COCHILDRENS ONCOLOGY CAMP FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $1k · revenue +3%
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.
Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
To engage and catalyze global seafood supply chains in rebuilding depleted fish stocks and reducing the environmental impacts of fishing and fish farming.
Project drawdown's mission is to drive meaningful climate action by advancing science-based solutions and strategies. project drawdown's work is focused on three pillars: science - advancing science-based climate solutions and strategies;…
Iatp works locally and globally at the intersection of policy and practice to ensure fair and sustainable food, farm and trade systems.
The international snow leopard trust aims to ethically conserve snow leopards and their high mountain ecosystems through partnerships with indigenous peoples and local communities, and through research to improve the understanding of snow…
The mission of the global alliance for improved nutrition (gain) is to improve the consumption of healthier diets for all, especially the most vulnerable, by improving the availability, affordability, desirability, and sustainability of…
Awf's mission is to ensure wildlife and wild lands thrive in modern africa. we work to equip african governments, institutions, business, and communities with the tools, insights, and support they need to define, own, and realize a…
Wildaid's mission is to inspire change and empower the world to protect wildlife and vital habitats from critical threats.
To change the future for nature and humanity by conserving birds of prey worldwide.
Our mission is to break down barriers to als research to find effective treatments. by uniting academia, the pharma and biotech industry, government, venture capital, related nonprofits, and the als community, we aim to overcome the…
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wounded Warrior Project Inc and the most unlike its peers is Madison Valley Ranchlands Group. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
19 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. 19 of the 35 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 MADISON VALLEY RANCHLANDS GROUP ↗
- Who funds MADISON VALLEY MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL ASIA INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds CHILDRENS ONCOLOGY CAMP FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Whitetail Ranch Center ↗
- Who funds STAR of Coastal Georgia Inc ↗
- Who funds MARINE TOYS FOR TOTS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds YELLOWSTONE FOREVER ↗
- Who funds SMILE TRAIN INC ↗
- Who funds FOOD SHARE INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS INC ↗
- Who funds KAPPA KAPPA GAMMA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AIDS PROJECT LOS ANGELES ↗
- Who funds Feeding America ↗
- Who funds NEW HEIGHTS SUMMER CAMP INC ↗
- Who funds WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN LEPROSY MISSIONS 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: Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · 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 Alton 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.
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% of income from government
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 Alton Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Alton 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.