· Private foundation
Gibson Gives Foundation Dba Gibson Gives
The gibson gives | gibson foundation is a 501(c)(3) committed to introduce, inspire, and amplify the power of music through guitars across all generations, genres, and genders.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k270 grants · $1.2M
- $10k–50k42 grants · $842k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $467k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GUITAR CENTER MUSIC FOUNDATION | $214,115 |
| MUSICARES | $143,068 |
| FREE GUITARS 4 KIDS | $59,606 |
| SAVE THE MUSIC FOUNDATION | $50,142 |
| WILLIAMSON COUNTY BOARD OF | $49,410 |
| SONGBIRDS FOUNDATION | $42,250 |
| ACM LIFTING LIVES | $40,241 |
| Individual grant recipient | $40,000 |
| SAVE THE MUSIC FOUNDATION | $40,000 |
| LAUNCH PAD FOUNDATION | $35,686 |
| LATIN GRAMMY CULTURAL FOUNDATION | $33,000 |
| FRIENDS OF AMERICAN SONG ARCHIVES | $31,766 |
| TRANSYLVANIAN SYMPHONY FOUNDATION | $30,243 |
| MUSICARES FOUNDATION | $27,149 |
| THE MIDNIGHT MISSION | $25,852 |
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 (FY21–25, $332k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 88% 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.
112 repeat relationships — 101 still active in FY2025, 11 since wound down; 199 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, 48% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.3M 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
- MFMUSICARES FOUNDATION INC8× · 2017–2025 · $505k · revenue +152%
- STSAVE THE MUSIC FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2025 · $402k · revenue +94%
- GFGuitars For Vets Inc5× · 2021–2025 · $262k · revenue +17% · 26% of their budget
Funded once
- GGGIBSON GIVES - PLAY IT FORWARD PROGRAMone grant, 2024 · $343k
- PFPLAYING FOR CHANGE FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $100k · revenue +142%
- JLJOHN LENNON EDUCATIONAL TOUR BUSone grant, 2024 · $91k
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.
Girls write nashville empowers expression through songwriting, production, mentorship and creative community for teen artists. we are an artist and educator-led 501(c)(3) creative youth development program in nashville, tn allied with…
To strengthen and save lives through music.
To develop a viable music industry in memphis for the future by providing a structured learning environment to enrich and equip our talents with proven tools to build the next generation of successful music professionals. the consortium…
We use music education as a tool to help students discover their capacity for creativity, technological innovation and entrepreneurship.
Music's promises is a music industry's social responsibility program, addressing important social issues in the u.s. and around the world. they provide the infrastructure for artists and music companies to support causes that are important…
The mission of lyrica baroque is to support a diverse community of students, teachers, artists, institutions and audiences of all ages through education, collaboration and performance. lyrica baroque seeks to promote the extraordinary…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of Middle Tennessee and the most unlike its peers is Breg Foundation Bozeman Duckie Race. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 16 years old; the field is 16. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 13% of your grantees by number, and just 7% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.9% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
373 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 373 of the 544 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 MUSICARES FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SAVE THE MUSIC FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Guitars For Vets Inc ↗
- Who funds THE GUITAR CENTER MUSIC FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MAGEE-WOMENS RESEARCH INSTITUTE AND FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Free Guitars 4 Kids ↗
- Who funds Nashville Symphony Association ↗
- Who funds PLAYING FOR CHANGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LATIN GRAMMY CULTURAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COUNTRY MUSIC FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Napa Valley Youth Symphony ↗
- Who funds GOLDTOP FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ACM LIFTING LIVES ↗
- Who funds GRAMMY MUSEUM FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LIVENATIONORG FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GIVE A NOTE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Second Line Arts Collective ↗
- Who funds WE ARE FAMILY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN FILM INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds NVAK INC ↗
- Who funds KEEPING THE BLUES ALIVE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LAUNCH PAD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FARM AID INC ↗
- Who funds The Night Stalker Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds SONGBIRDS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE MICHAEL J FOX FOUNDATION FOR PARKINSON'S RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF AMERICAN SONG ARCHIVES INC ↗
- Who funds Spirit of Atlanta Inc ↗
- Who funds THE MIDNIGHT MISSION ↗
- Who funds OZ ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds NEWPORT FESTIVALS FOUNDATION 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: Memorial Foundation Inc · The Frist Foundation · Hca Healthcare Foundation · Nashville Predators Foundation · The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee Inc · Dettwiller Foundation · The Steven & Laurie Eskind Family Foundation · The Cma Foundation · Pledgeling Foundation · Dorothy Cate and Thomas F Frist Foundation · The Danner Foundation · Louie M & Betty M Phillips Foundatn
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 Gibson Gives Foundation Dba Gibson Gives 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.
- Farm Aid Inc — 100% of income from government
- Diakonia Inc — 51% of income from government
- The Red Sox Foundation Inc — 2% of income from government
- Guthrie Center Corp — 1% of income from government
- Guitars Over Guns Organization Inc — 1% 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 Gibson Gives Foundation Dba Gibson Gives?
Find your warmest path to Gibson Gives Foundation Dba Gibson Gives 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.