· Private foundation
The Butcher Fund
Its FY2020 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
100% of The Butcher Fund’s FY2020 grant dollars went to Greater Houston Community Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2020 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2019, the last year The Butcher Fund named its own grantees at scale: 18 organizations, $159k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2020.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2019
- Under $10k13 grants · $69k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $90k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SAN MARCOS BAPTIST ACADEMY | $15,000 |
| EXPERIMENTAL AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATION | $15,000 |
| STEVENS & PRUETT FOUNDATION FOR CHILDREN & ANIMALS | $10,000 |
| HOUSTON'S FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH | $10,000 |
| TEAM RUBICON INC | $10,000 |
| TAO FELLOWSHIP | $10,000 |
| HOUSTON PUBLIC MEDIA FOUNDATION - HOUSTON PBS | $10,000 |
| BUFFALO BAYOU PARTNERSHIP | $10,000 |
| MEADOW WOOD ELEMENTARY PTA | $9,005 |
| ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF SAN DIEGO | $5,000 |
| ARCHDIOCESE OF GALVESTON-HOUSTON | $5,000 |
| BIRMINGHAM BOTANICAL SOCIETY INC | $5,000 |
| THE BEACON | $5,000 |
| STRAKE JESUIT FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| BIRMINGHAM MUSEUM OF ART | $5,000 |
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 (FY17–19, $35k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 57% 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.
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.
19 repeat relationships — 17 still active in FY2019, 2 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2019 (too recent to call). Read against FY2019, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2019, 79% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $34k 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
- EAEXPERIMENTAL AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATION INC3× · 2017–2019 · $40k · revenue +35%
- TRTEAM RUBICON INC3× · 2017–2019 · $30k · revenue +18%
- TFTao Fellowship3× · 2017–2019 · $30k · revenue +62%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $10k
- SOSTAR OF HOPE MISSIONone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue -60%
- SASALVATION ARMYone grant, 2017 · $5k
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 enrich life through discovery, education, and the conservation of plants and the natural environment.
Plant, protect and promote trees all over the greater Houston area.
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…
Rebuilding Together Houston is the only organization in Houston and Harris County providing free home repairs to hundreds of families each year. We employ licensed contractors to restore homes to safe, livable conditions, extending each…
Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation (TPWF) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization thatadvances Texas proud outdoor traditions through meaningful, high-impact programs,partnerships, and a wide range of projects that conserve and enhance our…
The Houston Bar Foundation supports programs that help provide legal representation to the indigent, promote community understanding of our legal system, and foster the administration of justice.
Inspire people to enjoy and protect birds through recreation, education, conservation, and restoration of the environment, upon which we all depend.
Seeking to put God's love into action, Houston Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities and hope to provide a world where everyone has a decent place to live.
Trinity Park Conservancy champions the transformation of the Trinity River to become the heart of Dallas. With the community, the Conservancy will design public spaces that unite us, enrich people's lives through access to nature, create…
To completely restore Houston Freedmen's Town as a heritage district that provides America with its only Freedmen's Town.
To facilitate research and development within the texas a&m university system and selected other entities.
Camp Aranzazu cultivates belonging for campers of all ages and abilities by creating accessible, empowering and intentional camp experiences.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Greater Houston Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Stevens & Pruett Foundation for Children & Animals. 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 33 years old; the field is 11. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 28% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 5% 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 30 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 GREATER HOUSTON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds EXPERIMENTAL AIRCRAFT ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds TEAM RUBICON INC ↗
- Who funds Tao Fellowship ↗
- Who funds STEVENS & PRUETT FOUNDATION FOR CHILDREN & ANIMALS ↗
- Who funds PTSD FOUNDATION OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds Buffalo Bayou Partnership Inc ↗
- Who funds THE BIRMINGHAM BOTANICAL SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF SAN DIEGO ↗
- Who funds Pathways for Little Feet ↗
- Who funds Lone Star Flight Museum ↗
- Who funds Strake Jesuit Foundation ↗
- Who funds THE BEACON OF DOWNTOWN HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds Birmingham Zoo Inc ↗
- Who funds PTA Texas Congress - MWE ↗
- Who funds Hays County Food Bank ↗
- Who funds STAR OF HOPE MISSION ↗
- Who funds Houston Area Women's Center ↗
- Who funds Camp For All Foundation ↗
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 · Shell USA Company Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Butcher Fund 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.