· Private foundation
The Carlson 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k3 grants · $18k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $125k
- $50k–250k8 grants · $765k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COLORADO COLLEGE | $200,000 |
| THE CRYSTAL CHARITY BALL | $125,000 |
| UT LAW SCHOOL FOUNDATION | $115,000 |
| SERVICES OF HOPE ENTITIES INC | $80,000 |
| DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART | $75,000 |
| ORCHESTRA OF NEW SPAIN | $60,000 |
| Rice University | $60,000 |
| NORTH TEXAS FOOD BANK | $50,000 |
| ST MARK'S SCHOOL OF TEXAS | $25,000 |
| DALLAS CHILDREN'S ADVOCACY CENTER | $25,000 |
| PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE AND SCIENCE | $20,000 |
| ASPEN ART MUSEUM | $12,500 |
| ST MICHAEL AND ALL ANGELS EPISCOPAL CHURCH | $12,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| NASHER SCULPTURE CENTER | $10,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $400k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% 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.
41 repeat relationships — 18 still active in FY2024, 23 since wound down; 1 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, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5k 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
- WMWilliam Marsh Rice University8× · 2017–2024 · $5.8M · revenue +104%
- TCTHE COLORADO COLLEGE8× · 2017–2024 · $1.1M · revenue +39%
- TCTHE CRYSTAL CHARITY BALL8× · 2017–2024 · $1.0M · revenue +11%
Funded once
- APAMERICAN PRAIRIE FOUNDATIONgraduated2× · 2019–2020 · $50k · revenue +167%
- NNTARUPT2× · 2019–2020 · $25k
- NCNATIONAL CENTER FOR ARTS RESEARCHone grant, 2017 · $15k
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 witte museum inspires people to shape the future of texas through transformative and relevant experiences in nature, science and culture.
Dallas contemporary presents art in a forum that cultivates artists, ignites learning and inspires the community. dallas contemporary is a non-collecting art museum presenting new and challenging ideas from regional, national and…
To generate superior long-term investment returns to support The University of Texas and Texas A&M University systems as they provide world-class teaching, push the boundaries of discovery, and achieve excellence in patient healthcare for…
Glasstire is a website about visual art in Texas. Our mission is to expand the conversation about visual art in Texas.
As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.
Trinity university is an independent co-educational university whose mission is excellence in the interrelated areas of teaching, research and services.
The mission of texas trees foundation is to improve the health of cities and people through the transformative power of trees.
The Progress Texas Institute provides research and strategic communications on issues with the ultimate goal of increasing civic engagement.
Using Shakespeare's works as a cornerstone, Shakespeare Dallas serves the Southwest region with fun and accessible indoor and outdoor theatre, integrated school programs, and cultural enrichment for people of all ages and backgrounds.
Dallas Christian is a college preparatory school committed to Biblical values where students are prepared for Christ-centered lives of purpose, service and leadership.
Klru is a leader in public media, distinguished by its energetic engagement with the community and for the quality and creativity of content. klru illuminates the wider world of knowledge; the importance of discourse; and the many…
Dallas Center for Photography's mission is to serve as a focal point for creators and appreciators of all forms of photography through education, mentorship, exhibitions, and community outreach.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Dallas Children's Advocacy Center and the most unlike its peers is Trinity River Mission Inc. 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 48 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 26% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 18% 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.
33 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. 33 of the 50 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 William Marsh Rice University ↗
- Who funds THE COLORADO COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds THE CRYSTAL CHARITY BALL ↗
- Who funds TACA INC ↗
- Who funds SERVICE OF HOPE ENTITIES INC ↗
- Who funds ST MARK'S SCHOOL OF TEXAS ↗
- Who funds NORTH TEXAS FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds Dallas Museum of Art ↗
- Who funds DALLAS CHILDRENS THEATER INC ↗
- Who funds DALLAS THEATER CENTER ↗
- Who funds DALLAS CHILDREN'S ADVOCACY CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE NASHER SCULPTURE CENTER ↗
- Who funds ASPEN ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds SM Wright Foundation ↗
- Who funds The Family Place ↗
- Who funds GREENHILL SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds PEROT MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE ↗
- Who funds TEXAS BALLET THEATER INC ↗
- Who funds Youth With Faces ↗
- Who funds YOUNG WOMEN'S PREPARATORY NETWORK ↗
- Who funds Southern Methodist University ↗
- Who funds THE ASPEN INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds PRESTON HOLLOW PRESBYTERIAN SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN PRAIRIE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS OF THE DALLAS REGIONINC ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS INC ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF GREATER TEXAS INC ↗
- Who funds TRINITY RIVER MISSION INC ↗
- Who funds THE DALLAS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF METROPOLITAN DALLAS 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: Communities Foundation of Texas Inc · The Dallas Foundation · The Perot Foundation · The Eugene McDermott Foundation · The Addy Foundation · United Way of Metropolitan Dallas Inc · Chi Omega Education and Charity Fund of Dallas · Capital for Kids · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Texas Instruments Foundation · Bnsf Railway Foundation · Fichtenbaum Charitable Trust
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 Carlson 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 Carlson Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Carlson 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.