· Private foundation
The Bayou Foundation Legacy Trust Company
Its FY2021 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- Under $10k28 grants · $57k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $120k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GOODWILL INDUSTRIES | $27,500 |
| HOUSTON MARITIME MUSEUM | $25,000 |
| HOUSTON AUDUBON SOCIETY | $25,000 |
| GALVESTON BAY FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| SAVE BUFFALO BAYOU | $12,000 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON HONORS COLLEGE | $10,000 |
| ST MARTIN'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH | $9,750 |
| FRIENDS OF DON GREENE NATURE PARK | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,000 |
| ST JUDE CHLLDREN'S HOSPITAL | $3,000 |
| THE EPISCOPAL RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT | $3,000 |
| DOCTOR'S WITHOUT BORDERS | $3,000 |
| RETINA RESEARCH FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
| HOUSTON PUBLIC MEDIA-KUHF | $2,500 |
| STAR OF HOPE MISSION | $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 (FY21–21, $2k) 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.
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.
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.
The mission of the Houston Arboretum & Nature Center is to provide education about the natural environment to people of all ages and to protect and enhance the Arboretum as a haven and sanctuary for native plants and animals.
The Houston Parks Board mission is to expand, improve, and protect parks and greenspace in the Houston region.
The texas state aquarium's mission is engaging people with animals, inspiring appreciation for our seas, and supporting wildlife conservation. its vision is to be a global leader in fostering support for the conservation of the gulf of…
Mission: Connect communities with animals, inspiring action to save wildlife. Vision: Be a leader in the global movement to save wildlife. (Continued on Schedule O) Houston Zoo, Inc. (HZI) strives to be a zoo that practices exemplary…
To enrich life through discovery, education, and the conservation of plants and the natural environment.
Coastal bend bays & estuaries program is dedicated to protecting and restoring bays and estuaries of the texas coastal bend. coastal bend bays and estuaries remain a vital part of the environmental and economic landscape by preserving and…
The Houston Local Information Initiative, Inc. provides public service journalism that reflects the civic needs of the diverse communities comprising Greater Houston.
Houston health foundation (hhf) has the mission of creating private/public partnerships for sustainable health and wellness initiatives and programs in our communities.
The mission of the Houston Museum of Natural Science shall be to preserve and advance the general knowledge of natural science; to enhance in individuals the knowledge of and delight in natural science and related subjects; and to maintain…
Plant, protect and promote trees all over the greater Houston area.
The Houston Parks Board Foundation provides the Houston Parks Board with financial assistance to support operations and park projects.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Star of Hope Mission and the most unlike its peers is Planned Parenthood. 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 42 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 28% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 17% 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.
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 34 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 GOODWILL INDUSTRIES OF SOUTH TEXAS INC ↗
- Who funds The Houston Audubon Society ↗
- Who funds HOUSTON MARITIME MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds Galveston Bay Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds SAVE BUFFALO BAYOU ↗
- Who funds EPISCOPAL RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds RETINA RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TEXAS FOUNDATION FOR PSYCHIATRIC EDUCATION AND RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds HOUSTON SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ↗
- Who funds TGP Public Schools ↗
- Who funds STAR OF HOPE MISSION ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD ↗
- Who funds The Houston Food Bank ↗
- Who funds THE COLORADO SPRINGS SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Pathways for Little Feet ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE FOR CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds Garden Club of Houston ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS COUNTRY OF HOUSTON 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: Greater Houston Community Foundation · William S & Lora Jean Kilroy Foundation · Albert & Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation · The Brown Foundation Inc · Shell USA Company Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Bayou Foundation Legacy Trust Company 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.