· Private foundation
The Barnes Family Foundation
Its FY2025 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
84% of The Barnes Family Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Arkansas Community Foundation Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 2 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2024, the last year The Barnes Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 5 organizations, $172k. 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 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 · FY2024
- Under $10k2 grants · $7k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $30k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $135k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ARKANSAS STATE GOLF ASSOCIATION | $73,421 |
| IMMERSE ARKANSAS | $62,000 |
| ARKANSAS BAPTIST COLLEGE FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| WOMENS INITIATIVE INTERNATIONAL INC | $10,000 |
| FIRST FREEWILL BAPTIST CHURCH | $10,000 |
| FIRST TEE OF CENTRAL ARKANSAS | $5,000 |
| FOLDS OF HONOR | $2,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $72k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 14%. 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 +15% since the first grant, against -12% for the ones you funded once.
10 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call). Read against FY2024, 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 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
- TATHE ANTHONY SCHOOL2× · 2017–2020 · $125k · revenue +38%
- HSHENDERSON STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION2× · 2017–2020 · $44k · revenue +15%
- LRLITTLE ROCK CHRISTIAN ACADEMY INC2× · 2017–2019 · $40k · revenue +52%
Funded once
- NLNEW LIFE CHURCHone grant, 2023 · $100k
- ABARKANSAS BAPTIST FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $50k
- A4Acts 4 Rwanda Incone grant, 2017 · $45k · revenue -12%
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.
Arborbrook Christian Academy partners with parents to equip, empower, and encourage students to cultivate godly character, pursue life-long learning, and love the Lord Jesus Christ.
Renewing the land of opportunity by simplifying government and solving generational problems for the next generation.
The mission of Abilene Christian School, Inc. is to equip students to excel academically, serve meaningfully, and walk faithfully with God.
Advocating for the development and implementation of data-driven public policy that improves child well-being in arkansas, with a focus on economic security, education, health, early childhood, child welfare, juvenile justice, and racial…
The purpose of the arkansas humanities council is to promote understanding, appreciation, and use of the humanities in arkansas. to achieve its purpose, the council awards grants through a competitive application process to nonprofit…
Advocate for educational professionals and unite our members and the state to fulfill the promise of public education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world.
Provide educational programs for construction industries.
To honor the legacy of Arkansas sports history
Ouachita baptist university is a christ-centered learning community. embracing the liberal arts tradition, the university prepares individuals for ongoing intellectual and spiritual growth, lives of meaningful work, and reasoned engagement…
Aurora Christian Schools exists to operate a Christian School to work with families in bringing their children to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, educating them from a Christian worldview and preparing them for a life of service…
Usher in leadership & policies that make arkansas the best place to live, work, and raise a family.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Arkansas Community Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Arkansas Baptist College Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
14 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. 14 of the 23 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 ARKANSAS COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE ANTHONY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds ARKANSAS STATE GOLF ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds IMMERSE ARKANSAS ↗
- Who funds Arkansas Baptist College Foundation ↗
- Who funds Acts 4 Rwanda Inc ↗
- Who funds HENDERSON STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LITTLE ROCK CHRISTIAN ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS FOR YOUTH AND FAMILIES INC ↗
- Who funds OUR HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds ARKANSAS HUNGER RELIEF ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds PULASKI ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds Explore Ministries Inc ↗
- Who funds FOLDS OF HONOR FOUNDATION ↗
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: Arkansas Community Foundation Inc · Riggs Benevolent Fund · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Network for Good · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Barnes Family 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.