· Public charity
The Dunavant Foundation
The primary exempt purpose of the organization is to assist the community foundation of greater memphis, inc.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2023–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k4 grants · $57k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $100k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ST MICHAEL CATHOLIC CHURCH | $50,000 |
| THE COTTON MUSEUM INC | $50,000 |
| ARTSMEMPHIS | $25,000 |
| THE FIRST TEE OF TENNESSEE IN MEMPHIS | $12,000 |
| DELTA WATERFOWL FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS FOUNDATION | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY23–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 93% 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 +30% since the first grant, against +10% for the ones you funded once.
5 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 0 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, 68% 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
- UOUNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS FOUNDATION3× · 2023–2025 · $5.6M · revenue +39%
- DWDelta Waterfowl Foundation2× · 2023–2025 · $2.0M · revenue +1%
- TGTENNESSEE GOLF FOUNDATION2× · 2023–2025 · $112k · revenue +30%
Funded once
- TMTHE MCCALLIE SCHOOLone grant, 2023 · $3.1M · revenue +6%
- MUMEMPHIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOLgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $3.1M · revenue +31%
- CCCHRIST COVENANT REFORMED CHURCHone grant, 2023 · $2.0M
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.
In fulfillment of our mission to inspire a culture of understanding and discovery of our natural world through conservation, innovation and leadership, our goal is to build a first class zoo for middle tennessee and to develop a facility…
To conserve the unique character of tennessee's natural and historic landscapes and sites for future generations.
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.
Finance impacts everyone. as a socially relevant organization, the museum of american finance seeks to improve understanding of the influence of financial institutions and capital markets on the u.s. and global economies, and on…
The foundation exists to cultivate and administer current and deferred gifts for the benefit of ms united methodist related institutions, agencies, local churches, and other ministries for charitable purposes and support and to educate…
To serve our members and partners by improving the quality of life through regional economic prosperity.
See Disclosure Above.
The memphis botanic garden exists to enhance lives by connecting people with nature to increase awareness and appreciation of our environment.
The mission of the Houston Museum of Natural Science shall be to preserve and advance the general knowledge of natural science; to enhance in individuals the knowledge of and delight in natural science and related subjects; and to maintain…
To enrich life through discovery, education, and the conservation of plants and the natural environment.
To be the leading voice of medicine to make minnesota the healthiest state and the best place to practice.
To produce plays and encourage the arts by performance and educational programs.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Le Bonheur Children's Hospital Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Binghampton Christian Academy Inc. 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 53 years old; the field is 60. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 14% 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.
22 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. 22 of the 25 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 UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE MCCALLIE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds MEMPHIS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Delta Waterfowl Foundation ↗
- Who funds Ducks Unlimited Inc ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds Memphis Zoological Society ↗
- Who funds CHURCH HEALTH CENTER OF MEMPHIS INC ↗
- Who funds SLINGSHOT MEMPHIS INC ↗
- Who funds PRESBYTERIAN DAY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds THE COTTON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE CHILDREN'S MUSEUM OF MEMPHIS INC ↗
- Who funds Le Bonheur Children's Hospital Foundation ↗
- Who funds Junior League of Memphis ↗
- Who funds ARTSMEMPHIS ↗
- Who funds Dixon Gallery and Gardens ↗
- Who funds TENNESSEE GOLF FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL WILD TURKEY FEDERATION INC ↗
- Who funds Binghampton Christian Academy Inc ↗
- Who funds COTTON MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF GREATER MEMPHIS 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: Community Foundation of Greater Memphis Inc · Christian Community Foundation of Memphis · Deborah D Tipton Charitable Foundation · Thomas Garrott Foundation · The Kemmons Wilson Family Foundation · Scheidt Family Foundation Inc · Wiseheart Foundation Inc · United Way of the Mid South · Jewish Foundation of Memphis · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn 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 Dunavant 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 Dunavant Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Dunavant 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.