How much does The Black Dog Foundation give?

The Black Dog Foundation reported 20 grants totaling $124,250 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 17 and 21 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Black Dog Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Environment (41%), International (24%), Philanthropy (8%).

Who are The Black Dog Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: World Resources Institute ($106k), Environmental Defense Fund Incorporated ($90k), Partners in Health a Nonprofit Corporation ($68k).

Does The Black Dog Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 11% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Black Dog Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Black Dog Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Fauquier Health Foundation Dba the Path Foundation, Wise Foundation, Northern Piedmont Community Foundation.

Where is The Black Dog Foundation based?

The Black Dog Foundation is based in VA.

The Black Dog Foundation

The Black Dog Foundation at a glance

· 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.

$124k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$19k

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Environment$438kInternational$262kPhilanthropy$83kCivil Rights$54kEducation$43kArts & Culture$38kHealth$36kFood & Nutrition$30kOther$0

02FY2025 · 20 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k16 grants · $70k
$10k–50k4 grants · $54k

$5,500

Median grant

States reached

$1.7M

Total assets

Largest grants
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
FINLEY'S GREEN LEAP FORWARD FUND	$5,000
BLUE RIDGE ABORTION FUND	$5,000
BALD HEAD ISLAND CONSERVANCY	$3,000
PIEDMONT ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL	$3,000
RESERVA YOUTH LAND TRUST	$2,500

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its 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. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

91%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$957k · 24 repeat orgs$95k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +96% since the first grant, against +16% for those 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

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$957k

$93k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+96%

+16%

Still filing today

67%

73%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

EnvironmentInternationalHuman ServicesFood & NutritionHealthCivil RightsOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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 INSTITUTE
9× · 2017–2025 · $106k · revenue +128%
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED
9× · 2017–2025 · $90k · revenue +202%
PARTNERS IN HEALTH A NONPROFIT CORPORATION
9× · 2017–2025 · $68k · revenue +120%

Funded once

N
NASM
one grant, 2021 · $25k
WH
WINDY HILL FOUNDATION INCgraduated
one grant, 2022 · $15k · revenue +27%
IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2020 · $13k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Environmental Investigation Agency

To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.

International

Food & Water Watch

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…

Food & Nutrition

Asociacion Interamericana Para La Defensa Del Ambiente

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.

Crime & Legal

Global Forest Generation

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,…

Environment

CarbonPlan

Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.

Environment

American Flood Coalition Inc

To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.

Environment

Fsc I&P

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.…

Philanthropy

Environment Next Inc

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…

Environment

Climate Leadership Council Inc

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.

Environment

Zero Foodprint

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…

Food & Nutrition

Grist Magazine Inc

Grist is an independent, non profit media organization dedicated to reporting on climate change.

Environment

Friends of the Earth

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…

Environment

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Friends of the World Food Program Inc; 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.

04the grantee network

26 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2026, 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.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

26/26

Grantees still filing

20/26

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$570,500Environment$203,500International$136,500Health$83,500Civil Rights$33,500Philanthropy$28,500Food & Nutrition$20,500

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Fauquier Health Foundation Dba the Path FoundationVA17.8× affinity6 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

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

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Black Dog Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Black Dog Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

8report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

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.

Play a game based on Black Dog’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home