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· Private foundation
THE ELLISTON FOUNDATION
This foundation does not accept unsolicited requests — it funds preselected organizations.
$45k
Granted FY2025
9
Grants
4
Communities
$13k
Largest
01What you fund
0167% classified
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2020–2025.
Education$270kHuman Services$18kYouth Development$6kRecreation & Sports$2kOther$146k
02FY2025 · 9 grants
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k8 grants · $32k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $13k
$3,000
Median grant
4
States reached
$2.5M
Total assets
Largest grants
- Our Calling$13,000
- Texas A & M University$9,000
- Denison Ministries$5,000
- Texas on Missions$5,000
- Samford University$3,000
- University of Oklahoma$3,000
- Texas State University$3,000
- University of Texas$3,000
- Colorado School of Mines$1,000
02The need
03
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.
show:
Your human-services grants (FY24–25, $18k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14% — the area typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
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; 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
03Your edge
repeat funding
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.
88%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$391k · 13 repeat orgs$51k to everyone else
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +41% since the first grant, against +26% for the ones you funded once.
13 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Re-uppedFunded once
Organizations
13
10
Total granted
$391k
$35k
Median revenue growth · since first grant
+41%
+26%
Still filing today
54%
30%
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 64% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $16k went to new ones.
RenewedFirst-time
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
EducationYouth DevelopmentRecreation & SportsHuman ServicesOther
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
Baylor University3× · 2020–2023 · $254k · revenue +44%- OCOur Calling2× · 2024–2025 · $18k · revenue +522%
- FMForerunner Mentoring2× · 2020–2023 · $6k · revenue +37%
Funded once
- GSGood Shepherd New Yorkone grant, 2023 · $10k
- TOTexans on Missionone grant, 2024 · $5k
- DFDenison Forumone grant, 2024 · $5k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
04Your field
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.
1
Houston Christian University
To provide instruction for approximately 5,200 students in undergraduate and graduate courses.
—
2
Texas Lutheran University
As a community of faith and learning, texas lutheran university empowers a diverse student body through an education centered on the liberal arts and professional programs. see form 990, part iii, line 1 for continuation of mission…
—
3
Hardin-Simmons University
To be a community providing excellence in education enlightened by Christian faith and values.
Education
4
Oklahoma Christian University
Oklahoma Christian University Exists to educate, mentor, and inspire students to fulfill their potential and transform their lives through Christian faith, scholarship, and service.
Education
5
Cedarville University
Cedarville university transforms lives through excellent education and intentional discipleship in submission to biblical authority.
Education
6
Oklahoma Baptist University
A Christian Liberal Arts University.
Education
7
Southern Methodist University
The Primary mission of the university is education through research and teaching by creating and imparting knowledge that will shape citizens who contribute to their communities and lead professions in a global society.
Education
8
Kentucky Christian University
Higher education for christian leadership and service in the church and in professions.
Education
9
Belhaven University
Belhaven university (belhaven) is a christian liberal arts university dedicated to excellence in christian higher education.
Education
10
Trinity University
Trinity university is an independent co-educational university whose mission is excellence in the interrelated areas of teaching, research and services.
Education
11
Huntington University
Huntington university is a christ centered institution that exists to carry out the mission of christ in higher education through a curriculum of academic excellence.
Education
12
Texas Wesleyan University
Founded in 1890 in fort worth, texas wesleyan university is a united methodist institution with a tradition in the liberal arts and sciences... (continued on sch. o)
Education
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Schreiner University and the most unlike its peers is Vanderbilt University. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
04the grantee network
11 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.
0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
11/11
Grantees still filing
10/11
Grew since you first funded
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Education$270,000Other$146,000Human Services$18,000Youth Development$6,000Recreation & Sports$2,000
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 Baylor University ↗
- Who funds Our Calling ↗
- Who funds Forerunner Mentoring ↗
- Who funds Schreiner University ↗
- Who funds Ouachita Baptist University ↗
- Who funds Vanderbilt University ↗
- Who funds Texas Christian University ↗
- Who funds Samford University ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds Abilene Christian University ↗
- Who funds Harding University ↗
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organisation THE ELLISTON 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.
2024
’20’21’22’23’24
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–25%
typical government reliance, FY20–24
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. 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.
05Through Plinth
Through Plinth
Your grantmaking, live and operational
This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: Forerunner Mentoring.
Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk
Financial management
low risk
~9 months of operating runway; revenue grew over 5 filed years.
Track record & reputation
low risk
5 years of Form 990 filings, still active.
Legal standing
low risk
US 501(c)(3); EIN 271615273 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.
Governance
Live in Plinth
Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.
Compliance & sanctions
Live in Plinth
OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.
Program capacity
Live in Plinth
Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.
Live · Plinth’s real DD engine
Run the actual assessment on Forerunner Mentoring, cold from public data.
Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.
Post-award monitoring · continuous checks
- On trackFinancial stability— Roughly 9 months of cash on hand.
- On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2025; revenue grew over the period.
- On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 1% of their budget — diversified.
- Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.
What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.
Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing
Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro
How do I get to The Elliston Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Elliston Foundation through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.
Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.
More from the funding graph
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars pass through an intermediary
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
Strange bedfellows
the named clusters of US funding
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home
State money flows
the interactive map of money crossing state lines