· Public charity
The Chattanooga Tourism Foundation
To support and promote tourism-related activities, events and projects to enhance the image and culture and develop the economic and social prosperity of the hamilton county, tennessee area and otherwise pursue such charitable activites within the meaning of section 501(c)(3) of the internal revenue code, and thereby lessen the burden of…
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 1 grants below total $50,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $100,000 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $50,000 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| INTERNATIONAL BLUEGRASS MUSIC ASSOCIATION | $50,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY21–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% 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 +18% since the first grant, against -20% for the ones you funded once.
21 repeat relationships — 0 still active in FY2025, 21 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, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $50k 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
- TVTENNESSEE VALLEY RAILROAD MUSEUM INC3× · 2022–2024 · $95k · revenue +14%
- FOFRIENDS OF THE ZOO INC3× · 2021–2023 · $88k · revenue +24%
- HMHunter Museum of American Art4× · 2021–2024 · $70k · revenue +127%
Funded once
- CPCHATTANOOGA PRESENTSone grant, 2023 · $17k
- RRREFLECTION RIDING ARBORETUM AND NATURE CENTERone grant, 2021 · $15k · revenue -20%
- FOFRIENDS OF THE FESTIVAL INCone grant, 2022 · $13k · revenue -76%
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 protect the architectural heritage of chattanooga through historic preservation, advocacy, and education
The organization's primary mission is conserving land where people and nature can thrive by creating green corridors linking existing public lands using conservation easments and outright purchase.
To provide high-quality musical presentations and educational programs in the chattanooga area
Our mission is to connect chattanooga's technology sector to drive regional economic growth.
Arts & business council of greater nashville supports and promotes the arts by driving collaboration between arts and business that contribute to the creativity, vitality, and prosperity of greater nashville/the regions/the city.
Chattanooga design studio seeks to elevate the quality of life for all citizens through guidance, collaboration, innovation, and education that promotes livable, accessible, walkable, and humane urban design.
To provide facilities, services, and programs of the highest quality for the greatest benefit of the people, institutions, and communities of the state, and to take a leadership role in fostering the performing arts, arts education,…
To educate Charleston area residents and visitors about the natural and cultural history of the South Carolina Lowcountry through collections, exhibitions, preservation, conservation, research and related programming.
The mission of the Tennessee Aquarium is to connect people with nature and empower them to make informed decisions about water and wildlife.
To support education, health and access programs that preserve, protect, and enhance Tennessee's natural areas and parks system.
To produce plays and encourage the arts by performance and educational programs.
Nashville public radio's mission is to be the most trusted & independent nashville voice, connecting our communities through non-partisan journalism, compelling storytelling, civil conversation and music discovery.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Tennessee River Gorge Trust Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Rivercity Company. 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 38 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% 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 14% 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.
23 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. 23 of the 31 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 Creative Discovery Museum ↗
- Who funds TENNESSEE VALLEY RAILROAD MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE ZOO INC ↗
- Who funds Hunter Museum of American Art ↗
- Who funds THE TIVOLI THEATRE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SONGBIRDS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE LAND TRUST FOR TENNESSEE INC ↗
- Who funds THE BESSIE SMITH CULTURAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE TENNESSEE RIVER GORGE TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds ASSOCIATION FOR VISUAL ARTISTS ↗
- Who funds LOOKOUT MOUNTAIN CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds SOUNDCORPS INC ↗
- Who funds CHATTANOOGA THEATRE CENTRE INC ↗
- Who funds REFLECTION RIDING ARBORETUM AND NATURE CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE RIVERCITY COMPANY ↗
- Who funds THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE CHICKAMAUGA AND CHATTANOOGA NATIONAL MILITARY PARK ↗
- Who funds CHARLES H COOLIDGE NATIONAL MEDAL OF HONOR HERITAGE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds LAUNCH INC ↗
- Who funds SPLASH ↗
- Who funds SCULPTURE FIELDS AT MONTAGUE PARK ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS FOR CHRISTIAN MEDIA 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: The Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga Inc · Benwood Foundation Inc · Chattanooga Christian Community Foundation · Lyndhurst Foundation Inc · Robert F Stone Foundation AKA Bobby Stone Foundation · Artsbuild · Riverview Foundation Inc · Schillhahn-Huskey Foundation · Hamico Inc · Footprint Foundation Inc · Tucker Foundation · The Maclellan Foundation Inc
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 Chattanooga Tourism 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 Chattanooga Tourism Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Chattanooga Tourism 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.