· Private foundation
The Gardner Family Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k11 grants · $30k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $70k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Black Mt Home for Children | $10,000 |
| Tunnel To Towers | $10,000 |
| Hillsdale College | $10,000 |
| PEO Mary Burnett Fund | $10,000 |
| Christ Community Church | $10,000 |
| Children & Family Resources | $10,000 |
| MANNA Foodbank | $10,000 |
| Food for Fairview | $6,000 |
| Helpmate | $5,000 |
| Mountain Care (day care for dementia) | $4,000 |
| Literacy Together | $3,000 |
| Root Cause Farm | $3,000 |
| Dogs Inc | $2,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,000 |
| Heritage Foundation | $2,000 |
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 (FY18–24, $68k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 97% 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.
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 +128% since the first grant, against +70% for the ones you funded once.
20 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2024, 12 since wound down; 9 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 42% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $52k 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
- CFCHILDREN & FAMILY RESOURCE CENTER OF HENDERSON COUNTY INC5× · 2019–2023 · $58k · revenue +154%
STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION5× · 2019–2024 · $51k · revenue ×12- PIPERFORMANCE INITIATIVES INC5× · 2019–2023 · $48k · revenue +176%
Funded once
- SBSAVANNAH BOOK FESTIVAL INCone grant, 2018 · $10k
- CMCENTRAL METHODIST CHURCHone grant, 2018 · $6k
- UMUNITED METHODIST CHURCHone grant, 2022 · $5k
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.
As a diverse community of learners, we cultivate integrity, curiosity, connection and resilience.
Dickinson college provides a useful, innovative and interdisciplinary education in the liberal arts and sciences to prepare students to lead rich and fulfilling lives of engaged global citizenship
Organization's mission bentley university believes good business can impact more than the bottom line - it can change the world. bentley is a community of future business leaders who will deliver value in the marketplace and lasting…
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
The organization offers children ages five and older an opportunity to learn and grow in a safe and stimulating academic environment in which the core subjects of language arts, mathematics, science, technology, social science and world…
To fight hunger and poverty in northeastern north carolina.
Fayetteville academy is an independent, college preparatory school (prek- 12) that encourages students to achieve their full potential by offering exceptional opportunities in academics, fine arts, and athletics. the academy emphasizes…
Provide a transformative educational experience that cultivates strengths of its students.
Fred hutch cancer center ("fred hutch") unites innovative research and compassionate care to prevent and eliminate cancer and infectious disease. continued on schedule o
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.
Liberty university, inc. is a distinctively christian academic community, with a mission of providing quality collegiate education training champions for christ.
Scad prepares talented students for creative professions through engaged teaching and learning in a positively oriented university environment.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Heritage Foundation and the most unlike its peers is The New Classical 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 29 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% 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 12% 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.
21 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. 21 of the 40 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 & FAMILY RESOURCE CENTER OF HENDERSON COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds HILLSDALE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PERFORMANCE INITIATIVES INC ↗
- Who funds ASHEVILLE-BUNCOMBE TECHNICAL COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HELPMATE INC ↗
- Who funds MANNA FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds BLACK MOUNTAIN HOME FOR CHILDREN YOUTH AND FAMILIES INC ↗
- Who funds FOOD FOR FAIRVIEW INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds ROOT CAUSE FARM INC ↗
- Who funds THE NEW CLASSICAL ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CATO INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Literacy Together ↗
- Who funds THE FAIRVIEW TOWN CRIER ↗
- Who funds HOSPICE SAVANNAH INC ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds Southeastern Guide Dogs Inc ↗
- Who funds DEEP CENTER INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds BETHESDA 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: The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina Inc · Wnc Bridge Foundation · Dogwood Health Trust · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation
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 Gardner Family 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.
- Southeastern Guide Dogs Inc — 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 Gardner Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Gardner Family 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.