· Private foundation
The Comer Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k20 grants · $83k
- $10k–50k13 grants · $301k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $592k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Auburn University | $228,000 |
| University of Alabama | $155,000 |
| University of Alabama at Birmingham | $147,000 |
| Scholarship America | $61,840 |
| Wallace State Community College | $43,874 |
| Alabama Ballet | $37,500 |
| Birmingham Musuem of Art | $37,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $35,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $29,500 |
| BB Comer Memorial Library | $26,000 |
| Better Basics | $20,000 |
| Sidewalk Film Center | $15,000 |
| STAIR | $15,000 |
| I3 Academy | $12,000 |
| Maranatha FLC and Academy | $10,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY22–25, $23k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 31% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
36 repeat relationships: 27 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 10 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, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $69k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- TSTHE STATE OF ALABAMA BALLET INC9× · 2017–2025 · $300k · revenue +31%
- SOSTAIR OF BIRMINGHAM9× · 2017–2025 · $170k · revenue +88%
- BBBETTER BASICS INC8× · 2018–2025 · $166k · revenue +149%
Funded once
- UOUniversity of Montevalloone grant, 2018 · $12k
- GSGirl Scoutsone grant, 2017 · $10k
- BLBIRMINGHAM LANDMARKS INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $5k · revenue +145%
How this is measured
Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
Closest unfunded matches
The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
To support the university of alabama at birmingham in its scientific and educational mission, including managing and disbursing funds, acquiring real property, and providing operational flexibility.
To work in partnership with families and organizations to ensure that all alabama children (birth to five) get everything they need to develop to their fullest potential.
The alabama best practices center helps teachers and administrators develop the competence, commitment and courage to do whatever it takes to improve student learning.
Birmingham Promise supports and prepares every Birmingham City School student in achieving economic security, mobility, and prosperity by providing connections to high-quality work experiences and last-dollar tuition scholarships
To promote the preservation and continued development of commercial banking in alabama.
The mission of ACLCE is to prepare youth to become active, engaged, and informed participants in a democratic society.
To advocate for and provide educational opportunitiesin the arts
Match adult volunteers with at-risk children. To promote a friendship which will build confidence and self-esteem in order to promote improved decision-making and reduce problems into adulthood.
The Organization is a nonprofit community defender providing legal assistance through court appointment to children and other indigent persons.
A statewide trade association which serves as a resource through which its electric cooperative members are provided services for the continuation and advancement of the rural electrification program in Alabama.
To ensure success for our children in the global community, the mission of sullins academy is to provide a positive educational environment, fostering academic excellence while maintaining a commitment to the core values of integrity,…
To promote the value of using a realtor and to enhance our members' opportunities to serve customers in a professional, ethical and profitable manner within an environment that fosters cooperation among the membership.
How this is measured
25 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.
How this is measured
Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 25 of the 52 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.
Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding
A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds THE STATE OF ALABAMA BALLET INC ↗
- Who funds STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM ↗
- Who funds BIRMINGHAM-SOUTHERN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds BETTER BASICS INC ↗
- Who funds ALABAMA WILDLIFE FEDERATION ↗
- Who funds Teach for America Inc ↗
- Who funds PRESCHOOL PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds Birmingham Zoo Inc ↗
- Who funds THE EXCEPTIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds I3 ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds SMILE-A-MILE ↗
- Who funds MITCHELL'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds Cahaba Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds Ronald McDonald House Global ↗
- Who funds VULCAN PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Special Equestrians Inc ↗
- Who funds THE A EDUCATION PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds FIRST LIGHT INC ↗
- Who funds STUDIO BY THE TRACKS INC ↗
- Who funds BIRMINGHAM LANDMARKS INC ↗
Co-funders
Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: The Daniel Foundation of Alabama · Susan Mott Webb Charitable Trust · Protective Life Foundation · The Hugh Kaul Foundation · Robert R Meyer Foundation · The Joseph S Bruno Charitable Foundation · Hill Crest Foundation Inc · Mike and Gillian Goodrich Foundation · Altecstyslinger Foundation · The Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham · Alabama Power Foundation Inc · Orlean & Ralph W Beeson Fund
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization The Comer Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Comer Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Comer Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Comer 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.
Play a game based on Comer’s filings →