Skip to content

· Private foundation

The Dobson Foundation Inc

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$14k
Granted FY2025still arriving
5
Grants FY2025still arriving
1
States reached
$6k
Largest
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Education$39kPublic Safety & Disaster$14kArts & Culture$12kHealth$8kHuman Services$7kAnimals$3kHousing & Shelter$1kCrime & Legal$440
02FY2025 · 5 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$1,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$212k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
SISTERS ACADEMY OF BALTIMORE$6,000
VETERAN AND MILITARY SUPPORT ALLIANCE$5,000
CHURCH HILL THEATRE$1,000
WELL SPRING LIFE MINISTRY$1,000
HAVEN MINISTRIES$1,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 51% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

area typical 7%VET DOGS INC: $2k → 7%NATIONAL CHILD SAFETY: $440 → 13%PREGNANCY MINISTRY: $2k → 6%CHURCH HILL THEATRE: $1k → 7%VETERAN AND MILITARY SUPPORT ALLIANCE: $5k → 8%SISTERS ACADEMY OF BALTIMORE: $7k → 11%MT SAINT JOSEPH HS ALUMI ASSOCIATION: $500 → 19%VET DOGS INC: $500 → 7%WELL SPRING LIFE MINISTRY: $1k → 6%QUEENSTOWN VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT: $2k → 7%SISTERS ACADEMY OF BALTIMORE: $6k → 11%PREGNANCY CLINIC: $1k → 6%QUEENSTOWN VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT: $2k → 7%SISTERS ACADEMY OF BALTIMORE: $6k → 11%QUEENSTOWN VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT: $2k → 7%SISTERS ACADEMY OF BALTIMORE: $6k → 11%QUEENSTOWN VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT: $2k → 7%SISTERS ACADEMY OF BALTIMORE: $6k → 11%HAVEN MINISTRIES: $1k → 7%SISTERS ACADEMY OF BALTIMORE: $6k → 11%QAC CENTRE FOR THE ARTS INC: $11k → 7%QUEEN ANNE'S COUNTY LODGE 108: $500 → 7%KENT ISLAND VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT: $5k → 7%QUEEN ANNE'S CLASSICAL SCHOOL: $2k → 7%TALISMAN THERAPEUTIC: $5k → 7%TALISMAN THERAPEUTIC: $1k → 7%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

64%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$53k · 4 repeat orgs$29k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +49% since the first grant, against +18% for those funded once.

4 repeat relationships: 1 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

4
8

Total granted

$53k
$21k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+49%
+18%

Still filing today

50%
13%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 43% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $8k went to new ones.

50%100%’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’20’21’22’23’24’25
Public Safety & DisasterHealthPublic BenefitHousing & ShelterArts & CultureOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • SA
    SISTERS ACADEMY OF BALTIMORE INC
    6× · 2020–2025 · $37k
  • QV
    QUEENSTOWN VFD INC
    4× · 2020–2023 · $8k · revenue +9%
  • TT
    TALISMAN THERAPEUTIC RIDING INC
    2× · 2023–2024 · $6k · revenue +49%

Funded once

  • QC
    QAC CENTRE FOR THE ARTS INC
    one grant, 2024 · $11k
  • KI
    KENT ISLAND VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT INC
    one grant, 2020 · $5k · revenue +18%
  • QA
    QUEEN ANNE'S CLASSICAL SCHOOL
    one grant, 2023 · $2k
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.

04Its field
04the grantee network

6 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. 6 of the 16 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
6/6
Grantees still filing
4/6
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

SISTERS ACADEMY OF BALTIMORE INC: $36,500 · OtherSISTERS ACADEMY OF BALTIMORE INCQAC CENTRE FOR THE ARTS INC: $10,500 · OtherQAC CENTRE FOR THE ARTS INCVET DOGS INC: $2,500 · OtherQUEEN ANNE'S CLASSICAL SCHOOL: $2,000 · Other+6 more: $4,940 · Other+6 moreQUEENSTOWN VFD INC: $8,000 · Public Safety & DisasterQUEENSTOWN VFD IN…KENT ISLAND VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT INC: $5,000 · Public Safety & DisasterKENT ISLAND VOLUN…TALISMAN THERAPEUTIC RIDING INC: $6,000 · HealthVETERAN AND MILITARY SUPPORT ALLIANCE INC: $5,000 · Public BenefitHAVEN MINISTRIES INC: $1,000 · Housing & ShelterCHURCH HILL THEATRE INC: $1,000 · Arts & Culture
Other$56,440Public Safety & Disaster$13,000Health$6,000Public Benefit$5,000Housing & Shelter$1,000Arts & Culture$1,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetQUEENSTOWN VFD INC: $8,000 over 4y, 0.3% of budgetTALISMAN THERAPEUTIC RIDING INC: $6,000 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetVETERAN AND MILITARY SUPPORT ALLIANCE INC: $5,000 over 1y, 1.8% of budgetKENT ISLAND VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT INC: $5,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetHAVEN MINISTRIES INC: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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 QUEENSTOWN VFD INC ↗
  • Who funds TALISMAN THERAPEUTIC RIDING INC ↗
  • Who funds VETERAN AND MILITARY SUPPORT ALLIANCE INC ↗
  • Who funds KENT ISLAND VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT INC ↗
  • Who funds HAVEN MINISTRIES INC ↗
  • Who funds CHURCH HILL THEATRE 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.

Mid Shore Community Foundation IncMD13.6× affinity4 shared granteesties to 1 of 1Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Mid Shore Community Foundation Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Dobson Foundation Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Dobson Foundation Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

2023
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 10%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%13%25%38%50%share of the org’s income from government →median 41%
  • Talisman Therapeutic Riding Inc: 41% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
1get no government money at all
3report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–50%
typical government reliance, FY20–25
How this is measured
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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 16 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Dobson’s filings →

More from the funding graph