· Private foundation
Sociable Weaver Foundation Inc
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
51% of Sociable Weaver Foundation Inc’s FY2024 grant dollars went to The Community Foundation Of Louisville Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 48 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2023, the last year Sociable Weaver Foundation Inc named its own grantees at scale: 58 organizations, $3M. 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
- Under $10k27 grants · $105k
- $10k–50k35 grants · $659k
- $50k–250k16 grants · $1.3M
- $250k+3 grants · $833k
Anchored by a single position — about 98% of reported assets are held in Brown Forman Corp Cl B.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PARKS ALLIANCE OF LOUISVILLE | $333,333 |
| KENTUCKY COLLEGE OF ART DESIGN | $250,000 |
| KENTUCKY COLLEGE OF ART DESIGN | $250,000 |
| LOUISVILLE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION INC | $150,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $137,500 |
| LOUISVILLE URBAN LEAGUE | $111,111 |
| SPEED ART MUSEUM | $100,000 |
| WEST END PREPARATORY SCHOOL INC | $100,000 |
| HARLAN COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF LOUISVILLE INC | $100,000 |
| WEST END PREPARATORY SCHOOL INC | $100,000 |
| ONE HARLAN COUNTY | $66,000 |
| COMMUNITY COORDINATED CHILD CARE INC | $60,000 |
| DAVIDSON COLLEGE | $52,500 |
| HARLAN COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $1.3M) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, 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.
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.
109 repeat relationships — 53 still active in FY2023, 56 since wound down; 19 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 FY2024, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $77k 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
- PAPARKS ALLIANCE OF LOUISVILLE INC5× · 2019–2024 · $1.4M · revenue ×14
- TLTHE LOUISVILLE URBAN LEAGUE INC4× · 2020–2023 · $763k · revenue +97%
- PMPORTLAND MUSEUM INC6× · 2019–2024 · $557k · revenue +263%
Funded once
- LVLOUISVILLE VISUAL ARTS ASSOCIATIONone grant, 2020 · $160k
- AOASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY MINISTRIES INCone grant, 2020 · $75k · revenue -75%
- TBTHE BERRY CENTER INCone grant, 2022 · $50k · revenue +2%
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.
Endeavor Louisville is leading the high-impact entrepreneurship movement in Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, catalyzing long-term economic growth by selecting, mentoring, and supporting the best high-impact entrepreneurs in our region.…
To represent our members, creating the environment and opportunity for economic prosperity and quality living in central kentucky.
Broadens the perspectives of current and emerging leaders through experiential education that inspires them to advance kentucky.
The Kentucky Chamber Foundation's purpose is to unlock the power of business, accelerate solutions, and build opportunity in Kentucky.
To provide effective advocacy for the financial services industry both in kentucky and on a national level; to serve as a reliable and responsive source of information and education about areas of interest to the industry; and to provide a…
Identify, mobilize, and fund programs to address louisville's greatest challenges regarding business growth and increased economic prosperity for all citizens in the greater louisville region.
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
To provide news and explanatory journalism in the public interest special reporting projects of an informative nature and to build a model on line newspaper others can replicate.
Facilitate agricultural and rural business development in kentucky by 1) providing leadership, educational, technical and financial resources and 2) improving the economic conditions of rural kentucky through promoting development of new…
To promote and assist, whether financially or otherwise, the activities of the greater louisville workforce development board, inc. d/b/a kentuckianaworks, and to raise funds and coordinate efforts that encourage louisville area residents…
The louisville academy of music welcomes everyone to join our musical community. lam nurtures lifelong learners, not solely as musicians but also as creative, inspired people. equity in music education is a force to realize potential,…
To support a prosperous business climate in the commonwealth of kentucky through advocacy, education, information and services in order to promote business retention and recruitment.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Louisville Free Public Library Foundatio and the most unlike its peers is Sarabande Books Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 27 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 12% of the field you don’t fund.
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.
161 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. 161 of the 195 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 THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF LOUISVILLE INC ↗
- Who funds PARKS ALLIANCE OF LOUISVILLE INC ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY COLLEGE OF ART DESIGN ↗
- Who funds THE LOUISVILLE URBAN LEAGUE INC ↗
- Who funds PORTLAND MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY DANCE COUNCIL INC DBA LOUISVILLE BALLET ↗
- Who funds LOUISVILLE COLLEGIATE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SPEED ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY RESOURCES COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER LOUISVILLE SPORTS COMMISSION INC ↗
- Who funds LOUISVILLE OLMSTED PARKS CONSERVANCY IN ↗
- Who funds West End School Inc ↗
- Who funds ONEWEST CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY COORDINATED CHILD CARE INC ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF INDIANA AND KENTUCKY INC ↗
- Who funds ISAAC W BERNHEIM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FUND FOR THE ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds EVOLVE502 INC ↗
- Who funds THE BETTER ANGELS SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds APPALSHOP INC ↗
- Who funds HARLAN COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LOCAL INITIATIVES SUPPORT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds LOUISVILLE FREE PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATIO ↗
- Who funds AONE ALLSTARS ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY PUBLIC RADIO INC ↗
- Who funds BREAKTHROUGH LOUISVILLE INC ↗
- Who funds Davidson College ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR APPALACHIAN KENTUCKY INC ↗
- Who funds ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds ONE HARLAN COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR WOMEN AND FAMILIES 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: The Community Foundation of Louisville Inc · The Gheens Foundation Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Depository Inc · Owsley Brown II Family Foundation Inc · The Brooke Brown Barzun Philanthropic Foundation Inc · Snowy Owl Foundation Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Corporate Depository Inc · James Graham Brown Foundation Inc · LG&E and Ku Foundation Inc · Republic Bank Foundation Inc · W L Lyons Brown Foundation · Brown-Forman 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 Sociable Weaver 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.
- Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association in — 9% of income from government
- New England Life Flight Inc — 5% of income from government
- Nantucket Conservation Foundation Inc — 4% 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 Sociable Weaver Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Sociable Weaver 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.