How much does The Ellwood Foundation give?

The Ellwood Foundation reported 68 grants totaling $2,850,000 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 65 and 67 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Ellwood Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2018 to FY2025, its largest causes are Health (38%), Education (26%), Human Services (18%).

Who are The Ellwood Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2018 to FY2025: The Brookwood Community Inc ($1.1M), The Briarwood School ($620k), Pursuit Foundation ($545k).

Does The Ellwood Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 2% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Ellwood Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Ellwood Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Greater Houston Community Foundation, Strake Foundation, Albert & Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation.

Where is The Ellwood Foundation based?

The Ellwood Foundation is based in TX.

The Ellwood Foundation

The Ellwood Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Ellwood Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$2.9M

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$200k

Largest

01What it funds

0194% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2018 to 2024.

Health$5.9MEducation$4.0MHuman Services$2.8MCrime & Legal$445kRecreation & Sports$445kEmployment$350kArts & Culture$195kScience & Tech$165kOther$0

02FY2025 · 68 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

$10k–50k45 grants · $890k
$50k–250k23 grants · $2.0M

$30,000

Median grant

States reached

$44M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
MD ANDERSON CANCER CENTER	$200,000
MD ANDERSON CANCER CENTER	$200,000
THE BROOKWOOD COMMUNITY	$165,000
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MEDICAL SCHOOL	$135,000
RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE	$110,000
THE CENTER FOUNDATION	$90,000
MARBRIDGE FOUNDATION	$85,000
AWARE ALZHEIMER'S ASSOCIATION	$80,000
BRIARWOOD SCHOOL	$80,000
STRAKE JESUIT LEARNING RESOURCE	$75,000
HUB HOUSTON	$75,000
Individual grant recipient	$70,000
TIRR FOUNDATION	$60,000
HOSPICE AT TEXAS MEDICAL CENTER	$60,000
HOUSTON AREA PARKINSON SOCIETY	$60,000

02The need

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:

Its human-services grants (FY18–21, $190k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 87% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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.

97%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$18M · 71 repeat orgs$545k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +35% since the first grant, against +9% for those funded once.

71 repeat relationships: 65 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$18M

$520k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+35%

+9%

Still filing today

58%

38%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $25k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EducationHealthHuman ServicesCrime & LegalRecreation & SportsEmploymentOther

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

TB
THE BRIARWOOD SCHOOL
7× · 2018–2025 · $620k · revenue +25%
TH
THE HUB HOUSTON INC
7× · 2018–2025 · $460k · revenue +122%
MF
MARBRIDGE FOUNDATION INC
7× · 2018–2025 · $425k · revenue +19%

Funded once

UO
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HEALTH SCIENCE CENTER HOUSTON
one grant, 2018 · $120k
TC
THE CENTER FOUNDATION 3550 WEST DALLAS
one grant, 2018 · $80k
IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2018 · $75k

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

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.

Breakthrough Houston

The mission of Breakthrough Houston (BTH) is to work with highly motivated students to achieve post-secondary success and empower aspiring leaders to become the next generation of educational advocates.

Education

The Arc of Harris County

To promote wellness, enriching the lives of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their families.

—

St John's School

See Schedule OSt. John's School is an independent, co-educational day school presenting a 13-year sequence of college preparatory training. A non-profit institution, it was founded in 1946 to provide the community with a school of exacting…

—

Made Houston

MADE Houston was formed to create a school community focused on nurturing and developing the unique academic and social needs of students with learning differences and to successfully transition students into mainstream schools.

Education

The Brenda & John H Duncan Rise School of Houston

The mission of The Rise School of Houston is to provide the highest quality of early education services to children with developmental disabilities and those without disabilities.

Education

Trees for Houston

Plant, protect and promote trees all over the greater Houston area.

—

Trinity Charter School

The trinity charter schools system has 11 campuses in texas. all 11 campuses work with youth who have emotional difficulties, and need active engagement in planning and guiding their own academic careers through student led credit…

Education

The Woodlands Christian Academy

TWCA is an independent, Christ-centered college preparatory school that integrates learning with biblical faith and challenges our students to reach their highest potential - intellectually, creatively, physically, and socially - for the…

—

Connectability

ConnectAbility's mission is to empower those with life altering disabilities and their caregivers to reach their fullest potential.

Human Services

The Fay School

See Schedule O. The Fay School ("the School") is a nonsectarian, not-for-profit, co-educational school in which children of diverse talents and backgrounds with strong academic abilities are offered a high-quality education in a secure,…

—

The Awty International School

See Schedule OThe purpose of Awty International School (Awty) is to create an environment where students experience excellence every day to make their mark on the world alongside their community, in a spirit of curiosity, courage and…

—

Texas Heart Medical Group

To provide cutting-edge cardiac care to diagnose, treat, and prevent cardiovascular diseases.

Health

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Yellowstone Academy Inc Dba Yellowstone Schools; the most unlike its peers is Covenant House Texas. 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

47 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. 47 of the 86 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

47/47

Grantees still filing

34/47

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$9,860,000Education$3,365,000Human Services$1,995,000Health$1,995,000Crime & Legal$525,000Employment$400,000Arts & Culture$235,000

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.

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.

Greater Houston Community FoundationTX47.1× affinity26 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Greater Houston Community Foundation · Strake Foundation · Albert & Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation · Vivian L Smith Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · The John M O'Quinn Foundation · The Elkins Foundation · MD Anderson Foundation · Sterling-Turner Foundation · John P McGovern Foundation · The William Stamps Farish Fund · The Brown Foundation Inc

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 Ellwood Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Ellwood Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

11report 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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to The Ellwood Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Ellwood 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 Ellwood’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home