· Private foundation
The Bill Gatton 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k1 grant · $43k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $254k
- $250k+6 grants · $27M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY | $13,200,000 |
| KING UNIVERSITY | $5,574,796 |
| ALICE LLOYD COLLEGE | $4,000,000 |
| VIRGINIA HIGHLANDS COMMUNITY COLLEGE EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION | $2,000,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA COLLEGE AT WISE | $1,800,000 |
| MCCLEAN COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $265,000 |
| BRISTOL TENNESSEE CITY SCHOOLS | $150,000 |
| UNITED WAY OF BRISTOL | $103,608 |
| APPALACHIAN LITERACY INITIATIVE | $43,452 |
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 (FY20–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 18%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 81% 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.
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 +63% since the first grant, against -8% for the ones you funded once.
6 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
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, 84% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4.2M 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
- KUKING UNIVERSITY2× · 2023–2024 · $9.6M · revenue +7%
- ALALICE LLOYD COLLEGE2× · 2021–2024 · $4.2M · revenue +63%
- ALAPPALACHIAN LITERACY INITIATIVE4× · 2021–2024 · $65k · revenue +211%
Funded once
- EHEMORY & HENRY UNIVERSITYone grant, 2022 · $2.0M · revenue +6%
- BBBETHLEHEM BAPTIST CHURCHone grant, 2022 · $1.3M
- WKWestern Kentucky University Foundatone grant, 2021 · $1.2M
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.
The mission of the University is to inspire independent thinkers who become trustworthy, effective leaders that shape caring communities. The vision of the University of Lynchburg is to cultivate a world that is innovative, authentic, and…
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
As a diverse community of learners, we cultivate integrity, curiosity, connection and resilience.
Augsburg university educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders.the augsburg experience is supported by an engaged community that is committed to intentional diversity in its…
Aascu is a washington, d.c. based higher education association that represents the sector of over 500 regional public colleges, universities, and systems whose members share a learning and teaching centered culture, a commitment to…
Coker university is a student-centered, comprehensive university. it is dedicated to providing every student an academic curriculum based upon a uniformly excellent liberal arts core that enhances the structured development of key personal…
The mission of wvicu is to advance collectively the interests of west virginia's independent colleges and universities and their students.
To advance knowledge, foster intellectual curiosity, build community, and empower lives of purpose, service, and leadership.
Inspired by lutheran scholarly tradition and the liberal arts, augustana provides an education of enduring worth that challenges the intellect, fosters integrity and integrates faith with learning and service in a diverse world.
A leader among faith-based universities Eastern Mennonite University emphasizes peace-building creation care experiential learning and intercultural engagement. Founded in 1917 in Harrisonburg Virginia EMU is an educational institution of…
The mission of the edward via college of osteopathic medicine (vcom) is to prepare globally-minded, community-focused physicians to meet the needs of rural and medically underserved populations and promote research to improve human health.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is King University and the most unlike its peers is Middle Tennessee State University Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 29 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 KING UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds ALICE LLOYD COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA HIGHLANDS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds EMORY & HENRY UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds MAYO CLINIC ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF BRISTOL TN-VA INC ↗
- Who funds APPALACHIAN LITERACY INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds MIDDLE TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ASBURY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds AWESOME CENTER FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP INC ↗
- Who funds ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE & RELATED DISORDERS ASSOCIATION 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: Wellmont Health System · Ibm International Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · American Endowment Foundation · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · 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 Bill Gatton 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 Bill Gatton Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Bill Gatton 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.