· Private foundation
The Bowdon Family Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k2 grants · $9k
- $250k+1 grant · $346k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| The Cedars Union | $345,600 |
| Van Cliburn Foundation | $7,500 |
| Second Thought Theatre | $1,250 |
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 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 95% 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 +71% since the first grant, against +53% for the ones you funded once.
6 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down.
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, 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
- TCTHE CEDARS UNION5× · 2020–2024 · $1.7M · revenue +33% · 81% of their budget
- TNTHE NASHER SCULPTURE CENTER2× · 2022–2023 · $56k · revenue +93%
- TBTEXAS BALLET THEATER INC2× · 2020–2022 · $36k · revenue +71%
Funded once
- TCTEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITYone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue +7%
- DMDallas Museum of Artgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $7k · revenue +427%
- TPTHE PLANETARY SOCIETYgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue +53%
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 Morgan Library & Museum celebrates and shares the history and process of human creativity from antiquity to the present day through the preservation, study, and interpretation of a dynamic and growing collection.
Classical Theatre Company is dedicated to boldly re-envisioning classical drama on the stage, in the community, and in the classroom through engaging and enlightening plays that bring them new life and relevance while maintaining the…
To promote and present the highest quality chamber music for our city and region, reflecting innovation, creativity in programming, and selection of superior musical artists. To build an informed audience for chamber music, now and in the…
The Dallas Opera connects local and global audiences through world-class performances of both new and traditional works. We sing stories for all generations, harmonizing entertainment, education, and artistry.
The mission of HGO is to enrich our diverse community through the art of opera. We will do so by creating, curating, exploring, and producing outstanding experiences centered around the human voice.(Continued on Schedule O)
Chicago opera theater expands the tradition of opera as a living art form by engaging lovers of music and storytelling through innovative experiences, predominantly of new and rarely performed works.
Midland festival ballet is a 501(c)3 nonprofit whose mission is to promote and present the art of classical ballet through education, performance, and outreach.
ATC's mission is to create world-class theatre about what it means to be alive today - inspiring curiosity and creativity, sparking empathy and joy - bringing all Arizonans together.
The mission of the Houston Symphony is to inspire and engage a large and diverse audience in Greater Houston and beyond through exceptional orchestral performances, educational programs and community activities.
Dayton Performing Arts Alliance is an innovative merger of Ballet, Opera, and Orchestra art forms.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Dallas Museum of Art and the most unlike its peers is The Cedars Union. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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.
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 THE CEDARS UNION ↗
- Who funds THE NASHER SCULPTURE CENTER ↗
- Who funds TEXAS BALLET THEATER INC ↗
- Who funds Van Cliburn Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Fort Worth Opera Association Inc ↗
- Who funds Dallas Museum of Art ↗
- Who funds THE PLANETARY SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds SECOND THOUGHT THEATRE ↗
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: The Eugene McDermott Foundation · Rea Charitable Trust · Bnsf Railway Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable 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 Bowdon 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.