· Private foundation
The Elmwood Fund
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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k18 grants · $28k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $11k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $117k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| The Branch Museum | $117,000 |
| Virginia League of Planned Parenthood | $11,000 |
| Foundation for Nation | $3,500 |
| Development Office Orchard Park | $3,500 |
| VCU | $3,500 |
| St James Episcopal Church | $3,000 |
| Child Savers | $2,500 |
| St Catherines School | $1,500 |
| Pawling Yoga & Wellness | $1,500 |
| St Paul's Episcopal Church | $1,500 |
| St Andrew's School | $1,000 |
| Richmond Animal Care | $1,000 |
| Maymont Foundation | $1,000 |
| Friends of James River Park | $1,000 |
| The Akin Hall Association | $1,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY20–25, $8k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +28% since the first grant, against +6% for the ones you funded once.
33 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 18 since wound down; 5 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; $11k 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
- WFWOODBERRY FOREST SCHOOL2× · 2021–2023 · $14k · revenue +35%
- CMCHILDSAVERS- MEMORIAL CHILD GUIDANCE CLINIC5× · 2020–2025 · $12k · revenue +22%
- AHAKIN HALL ASSOCIATION6× · 2020–2025 · $12k · revenue +771%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2024 · $7k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $4k
- GWGreater Works Christianone grant, 2022 · $4k
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.
The Roanoke Symphony Orchestra provides a professional symphony orchestra of artistic excellence and integrity to enrich lives, to educate, and to entertain diverse audiences in western Virginia with the highest quality instrumental and…
The foundation determines the patentability and obtains patents on virginia commonwealth university (vcu) inventions and markets and licenses such inventions to commerical entities. the foundation's activities promote research efforts at…
Creating spaces where contemporary art inspires connection, sparks creativity, and fosters innovation.
Our approach to a holistic Waldorf education lays the foundation for a life full of meaning and purpose. (See 4a)
To be a catalyst in Richmond for learning and living through art.
We produce vital works of classical and contemporary theatre, with Shakespeare as our foundation. We approach this work boldly with a resolve to ignite spirits, educate minds and defy expectation.
Vcca's mission is to provide time and space for national and international writers, visual artists, and composers of talent and promise to bring forth their finest works, because the arts are vital, diversity is a strength, and creativity…
To serve as the region's leading source of informational science education through interactive science demonstrations, hands-on education programs and outreach programs.
Elevating awareness of the transformative power of architecture and design.
To provide investment and investment management and related services to the rector and the board of visitors of virginia commonwealth university (vcu), and/or to the private and independent foundations and other entities affiliated with…
Roanoke College develops students as whole persons and prepares them for responsible lives of learning, service, and leadership by promoting their intellectual, ethical, spiritual and personal growth.
The virginia association of museums is a statewide network serving the museum community. the association's mission statement is "the virginia association of museums helps our museum community succeed".
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Virginia Repertory Theatre and the most unlike its peers is Oakwood Arts 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 45 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% 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 11% 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.
25 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. 25 of the 63 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 WOODBERRY FOREST SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds CHILDSAVERS- MEMORIAL CHILD GUIDANCE CLINIC ↗
- Who funds AKIN HALL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE RICHMOND SYMPHONY ↗
- Who funds Pawling Yoga and Wellness Inc ↗
- Who funds MAYMONT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Oakwood Arts Inc ↗
- Who funds EMERSON COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY RESOURCE & SERVICE CENTER ↗
- Who funds DUKE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA OPERA ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds Chewonki Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA REPERTORY THEATRE ↗
- Who funds ART 180 Inc ↗
- Who funds RICHMOND JAZZ SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds FEED MORE INC ↗
- Who funds CAPITAL TREES ↗
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: The Community Foundation Inc · Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation · Estes Foundation Co Matthew Breidenbach Pitcairn · Tesco Foundation · Robert G Cabell III and Maude Morgan Cabell Foundation · Herndon Foundation · Richard S Reynolds Foundation · Wilbur Moreland Havens Charitable Foundation · The William H - John G - Emma Scott Foundation · The Pauley Family Foundation · Robins Foundation · Overton & Katharine Dennis Fd-Cust
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 Elmwood Fund 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.
- Sherman Chamber Ensemble Inc — 6% of income from government
- Emerson College — 0% of income from government
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 Elmwood Fund?
Find your warmest path to The Elmwood Fund 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.