· Private foundation
The Ferguson Family Charitable Foundation
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 clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k3 grants · $15k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $103k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FRIENDS OF THE VINSON CEMETERY | $28,000 |
| REAL ISLAND VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT | $25,000 |
| PARTNERS IN EXCELLENCE FUND (MRA) | $10,000 |
| THE EXCEPTIONAL FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| SOZO CHILDREN | $10,000 |
| BIG OAK RANCH | $10,000 |
| JIMMIE HALE MISSION | $10,000 |
| TUNNEL TO TOWERS | $5,000 |
| CHILDREN'S HARBOR | $5,000 |
| THE FOUNDRY MINISTRIES | $5,000 |
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, $47k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% of those 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 +28% since the first grant, against +18% for the ones you funded once.
15 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 3 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, 79% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $25k 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
- CHCHILDREN'S HARBOR INC6× · 2020–2025 · $77k · revenue +226%
- DJDOWNTOWN JIMMIE HALE MISSION6× · 2020–2025 · $31k · revenue +42%
- TFTHE FOUNDRY MINISTRIES INC6× · 2020–2025 · $29k · revenue +28%
Funded once
- CFCAMP FIRE ALABAMA - CAMP FLETCHER BUILDING FUNDone grant, 2020 · $34k
- MCMETHODIST CHILDREN'S HOMES OF MSone grant, 2023 · $22k
- ANAmerican National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branchesone grant, 2024 · $10k · revenue +3%
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.
Arbor research collaborative for health is committed to improving patient care through research that shapes medical policies and practice. in particular, arbor research conducts health outcomes research on chronic disease and end-stage…
To provide cost-effective residential, social, intellectual, physical and vocational services to individuals with autism in group homes and in home support.
Children's services
Assisted Living and Nursing Care
We are dedicated to providing education to families and caregivers, building support systems, coordinating services and nurturing the development of each individual.
Children's house international provides ethical adoption services, child focused recruitment, and family support. we support disadvantaged children with humanitarian aid in countries worldwide.
Habilitation and residential services for adults with developmental disabilities
The arc baltimore supports people with developmental disabilities to lead fulfilling lives with a sense of belonging, purpose, and meaningful relationships.
Providing innovative and life-enriching services for children, adolescents, and adults with disabilities.
Provide residential, in-home, and community-based choices for people with disabilities.
To actively seek employment for individuals with psychological or physical disabilities.
Supporting people with special needs to lead fulfilled lives.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Harbor Day School and the most unlike its peers is American Heart Association Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
20 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. 20 of the 28 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 CHILDREN'S HARBOR INC ↗
- Who funds REAL ISLAND VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT INC ↗
- Who funds BIG OAK RANCH INC ↗
- Who funds DOWNTOWN JIMMIE HALE MISSION ↗
- Who funds WESLEY BIBLICAL SEMINARY ↗
- Who funds THE FOUNDRY MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds THE EXCEPTIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds The Mustard Seed Inc ↗
- Who funds HARBOR DAY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds The Arc of Central Alabama Inc ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds Bridgeways Inc ↗
- Who funds SOZO CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds CHILDCARE RESOURCES ↗
- Who funds HAND IN PAW INC ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RAINBOW OMEGA INC ↗
- Who funds THE WELLHOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds Quarterbacking Children's Health Foundation ↗
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: Altecstyslinger Foundation · The Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham · Alabama Power Foundation Inc · Dunn-French Foundation · Hill Crest Foundation Inc · The Joseph S Bruno Charitable Foundation · Protective Life Foundation · The Daniel Foundation of Alabama · Burton Family Foundation · Pete M Hanna Charitable Foundation · United Way of Central Alabama Inc · Susan Mott Webb Charitable Trust
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 Ferguson Family Charitable 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 Ferguson Family Charitable Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Ferguson Family Charitable 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.