· Private foundation
The Black Dog 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.
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 · FY2025
- Under $10k16 grants · $70k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $54k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS (MEDICNES SANS FRONTIERS) | $19,250 |
| WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE | $13,000 |
| NATURE CONSERVANCY OF VIRGINIA | $12,000 |
| ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND | $10,000 |
| HALO TRUST | $9,000 |
| PARTNERS IN HEALTH | $7,500 |
| WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN | $7,000 |
| WAMU | $6,500 |
| ACLU OF VIRGINIA | $6,000 |
| NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUCATION FUND | $5,500 |
| BLUE RIDGE ABORTION FUND | $5,000 |
| FINLEY'S GREEN LEAP FORWARD FUND | $5,000 |
| BALD HEAD ISLAND CONSERVANCY | $3,000 |
| PIEDMONT ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL | $3,000 |
| RESERVA YOUTH LAND TRUST | $2,500 |
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 (FY17–22, $7k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 23% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +102% since the first grant, against +16% for the ones you funded once.
24 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE9× · 2017–2025 · $106k · revenue +186%
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED9× · 2017–2025 · $90k · revenue +202%
PARTNERS IN HEALTH A NONPROFIT CORPORATION9× · 2017–2025 · $68k · revenue +120%
Funded once
- NNASMone grant, 2021 · $25k
- WHWINDY HILL FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $15k · revenue +27%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $13k
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.
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
Food & water watch conducts extensive research and public education to ensure the food and water we consume is safe, accessible and sustainably produced. so we can all enjoy and trust in what we eat and drink, we help people take charge of…
To strenghten people's ability to guarantee their individual and collective right to a healthy environment, via the development, implementation, and effective enforcement of national and international law.
Global Forest Generation restores and protects forest ecosystems in partnership with grassroots leaders and local communities across vast landscapes which play a critical role in preserving water, protecting biodiversity, storing carbon,…
Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.
To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.
Fsc i&p promotes environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world's forests. this mission aligns with the forest stewardship council (fsc), its network of offices, and other organizations.…
Environment next supports individuals, nonprofits and businesses around the world on solutions to complex climate issues. we provide leadership, outreach and communication support, grants, and investments to empower leaders and their ideas…
To develop and promote a carbon dividends framework - based on carbon fees whose revenues are rebated to citizens through dividends - as the most cost-effective, equitable, and politically viable climate solution.
Zero foodprint is mobilizing the food world around agricultural climate solutions. our work aims to create a circular economy that incentivizes practices that actively draw down carbon dioxide and offer our best hope of addressing the…
Grist is an independent, non profit media organization dedicated to reporting on climate change.
Friends of the earth strives for a more healthy and just world by defendng the environment and human health while advancing social and economic justice by conducting research and education, transforming the economy so it protects the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Friends of the World Food Program Inc and the most unlike its peers is Partners in Health a Nonprofit Corporation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 45 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 4% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 37 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 WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS IN HEALTH A NONPROFIT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds THE PIEDMONT ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUC FUND INC ↗
- Who funds BALD HEAD ISLAND CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHERN PIEDMONT COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia ↗
- Who funds FINLEYS GREEN LEAP FORWARD ↗
- Who funds FAUQUIER FREE CLINIC INC ↗
- Who funds BLUE RIDGE ABORTION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds SIERRA CLUB ↗
- Who funds WINDY HILL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LITERACY VOLUNTEERS OF FAUQUIER COUNTY ↗
- Who funds FAUQUIER COMMUNITY FOOD BANK & THRIFT STORE ↗
- Who funds BREAD FOR THE CITY INC ↗
- Who funds SOME INC ↗
- Who funds Mercy Corps ↗
- Who funds HIGHLAND SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds MARA ELEPHANT PROJECT USA INC ↗
- Who funds RAPPAHANNOCK PANTRY INC ↗
- Who funds THE PLAINS VOLUNTEER FIRE COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds AYUDA INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE WORLD FOOD PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL 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: Fauquier Health Foundation Dba the Path Foundation · Wise Foundation · Northern Piedmont Community Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Fhi Services · Hillsdale Fund · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Network for Good · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · 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 Black Dog 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.
- Mercy Corps — 47% of income from government
- Partners in Health a Nonprofit Corporation — 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 Black Dog Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Black Dog 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.