· Private foundation
The Columbia Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
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 $10k9 grants · $28k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $60k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $57k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE ATLANTA OPERA | $56,682 |
| BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF CENTRAL MO | $15,000 |
| ATLANTA CHAMBER PLAYERS INC | $13,000 |
| THE HOWARD SCHOOL INC | $12,300 |
| PIEDMONT PARK CONSERVANCY | $10,000 |
| ROBERT W WOODRUFF ARTS CENTER INC | $10,000 |
| FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF ATLANTA | $7,000 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF COLUMBIA | $6,925 |
| Individual grant recipient | $6,000 |
| ROBERT W WOODRUFF ARTS CENTER INC | $5,000 |
| ATLANTA BALLET | $1,167 |
| FOX THEATRE INC | $996 |
| KUDZU DEFENSE FUND INC | $500 |
| OUT FRONT THEATRE COMPANY INC | $259 |
| ROBERT W WOODRUFF ARTS CENTER INC | $182 |
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 (FY19–23, $13k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +62% since the first grant, against +33% for the ones you funded once.
15 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 4 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, 72% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $41k 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
- TATHE ATLANTA OPERA INC3× · 2022–2024 · $198k · revenue +89%
- PPPiedmont Park Conservancy Inc3× · 2022–2024 · $63k · revenue +77%
- RWROBERT W WOODRUFF ARTS CENTER INC3× · 2020–2024 · $16k · revenue +62%
Funded once
- AOASHLAND OPTIMIST FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue -38%
- LCLove Columbia Corp Love Columbiagraduatedone grant, 2019 · $10k · revenue +37%
- AAALZHEIMER'S ASSOCIATIONone grant, 2023 · $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.
The District of Columbia Arts Center serves the Washington DC area by presenting high caliber and challenging works. It encourages professionalism among artists by providing a forum for educational and cultural exchange. DCAC was founded…
Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra (CCO) creates intimate, transformative experiences that connect the musically curious.
To provide an artistic home for the development and production of contemporary plays that engage and challenge a diverse audience.
Carpenter Square Theatre Inc entertains, educates, and enriches the community with unedited, live contemporary works. Educational programs serve at-risk teens in the metro area, as well as adults.
To create, to present, to preserve, and to extend the great repertoire of classical dancing through exciting performances and educational programming of the highest quality, presented to the widest possible audience. american ballet…
The Educational Theatre Company seeks to unlock the potential of children and adults through immersion in theatre arts.
To offer a broad range of high-quality entertainment that nurtures cultural experience, participation and community engagement among residents and visitors of all ages, and enhances the economic vitality of the region.
To engage and inspire by making arts education and entertainment accessible to our rural communities.
A Red Orchid Theatre is an ensemble of artists dedicated to the proliferation of live theatre in the modern world.
To nuture a life-long love of music through imaginative and inspiring experiences for the listeners of today and tomorrow.
We are Cincinnati's national theater - committed to bringing diverse, engaging works of great artistry to our community, and to putting Cincinnati's artistic excellence in the national spotlight.
To shape the future of classical music by energizing, modernizing, and personalizing the concert experience.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Atlanta Ballet Inc and the most unlike its peers is Ansley Park Beautification Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
20 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. 20 of the 38 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 THE ATLANTA OPERA INC ↗
- Who funds GREAT CIRCLE ↗
- Who funds Mareck Center for Dance ↗
- Who funds Piedmont Park Conservancy Inc ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF THE COLUMBIA AREA ↗
- Who funds ASHLAND OPTIMIST FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ROBERT W WOODRUFF ARTS CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds ATLANTA CHAMBER PLAYERS INC ↗
- Who funds The Howard School Inc ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL MISSOURI HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Love Columbia Corp Love Columbia ↗
- Who funds MDE SCHOOL OF EAST COBB INC ↗
- Who funds Moms House of Endicott NY Inc ↗
- Who funds ANSLEY PARK BEAUTIFICATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ATLANTA BALLET INC ↗
- Who funds Hemet Concert Association ↗
- Who funds FOX THEATRE INC F/K/A ATLANTA LANDMARKS INC ↗
- Who funds Out Front Theatre Company Inc ↗
- Who funds TREES ATLANTA INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA 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 for Greater Atlanta Inc · The Antinori Foundation Inc · Charles Loridans Foundation Inc · The Virginia & Charles Brewer Family Foundation · The Arthur M Blank Family Foundation · Veterans United Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · American Endowment Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · American Online Giving 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 Columbia 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 Columbia Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Columbia 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.