· Private foundation
The Helis Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k16 grants · $54k
- $10k–50k32 grants · $619k
- $50k–250k12 grants · $913k
- $250k+2 grants · $808k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| The Ogden Museum of Southern Art | $554,486 |
| New Orleans Museum of Art | $254,000 |
| US Biennial Inc | $150,000 |
| United Way of Southeast Louisiana | $125,000 |
| Arts Council of New Orleans | $110,000 |
| New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival Foundation | $109,500 |
| Louisiana Children's Museum | $60,000 |
| Friends of WWOZ Inc | $55,000 |
| Preservation Resource Center | $53,500 |
| Ochsner Clinic Foundation | $50,000 |
| Second Harvester of Greater NO & Acadiana | $50,000 |
| The National World War II Museum | $50,000 |
| WWNO 899 | $50,000 |
| Rivers Institute for Contemporary & Thought | $50,000 |
| Louisiana Endowment for the Humantities | $40,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $50k) land where the poverty rate runs at 23%, against an area that typically sits at 14%. 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.
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 +22% since the first grant, against +16% for the ones you funded once.
63 repeat relationships — 50 still active in FY2024, 13 since wound down; 11 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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $112k 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
- NONEW ORLEANS MUSEUM OF ART5× · 2020–2024 · $1.3M · revenue +22%
- UWUNITED WAY OF SOUTHEAST LOUISIANA5× · 2020–2024 · $638k · revenue +23%
- LELOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES5× · 2020–2024 · $439k · revenue +100%
Funded once
- KAKemper and Lelia Williams Foundationone grant, 2020 · $75k
- CPCITY PARK CONSERVANCY2× · 2023–2024 · $50k · revenue +14%
- UOUniversity of New Orleansone grant, 2021 · $50k
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.
To strengthen, promote, and build the capacity of louisiana's nonprofit sector through education, advocacy, and member services.
The University of New Orleans Foundation's mission is to promote the well-being and advancement of the University of New Orleans and all the colleges, schools, departments, and divisions comprising it, and to develop, expand, and improve…
Support of the city of new orleans library system and city wide literacy efforts through parnter organizations, community organizations and initiatives including fundraising and expending funds to supplement library operations.
The mission of the foundation is to inspire donors to invest in the lsu health sciences center - new orleans ("hsc-no") and its future, to properly steward those contributions, and to help meet the ever evolving needs of the lsuhsc-no by…
-To support any and all programs, facilities, research, and educational opportunities offered by the University of New Orleans and the University of Louisiana System.-To encourage teaching, research, scholarship, and services, and increase…
To provide sound analysis of state fiscal issues to promote economic prosperity, a rising standard of living, and the opportunity for all citizens to reach their highest potential.
The new orleans startup fund is a seed capital fund established by the greater new orleans businesses and financial leaders to accelerate the growth of early-stage, innovative businesses into venture-ready companies. the startup funds'…
To foster regional economic development and create quality jobs within the metropolitan new orleans area.
Prospect New Orleans is a citywide contemporary art triennial. Every three years, we bring new art to an old city by inviting artists from all over the world to create projects in a wide variety of venues spread throughout New Orleans.…
The lsu foundation cultivates and invests in philanthropic partnerships to support and advance lsu's academic priorities.
Loyola University New Orleans, a Jesuit and Catholic institution of higher education, welcomes students of diverse backgrounds and prepares them to lead meaningful lives with and for others; to pursue truth, wisdom, and virtue; and to work…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and the most unlike its peers is The National World War Ii Museum 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 42 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 25% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 18% 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.
65 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. 65 of the 103 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 OGDEN MUSEUM OF SOUTHERN ART ↗
- Who funds NEW ORLEANS MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF SOUTHEAST LOUISIANA ↗
- Who funds LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES ↗
- Who funds Arts Council of New Orleans ↗
- Who funds Contemporary Arts Center ↗
- Who funds LOUISIANA CHILDRENS MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds NEW ORLEANS JAZZ & HERITAGE FESTIVAL AND FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATIONAL WORLD WAR II MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds NEW ORLEANS BOTANICAL GARDEN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NEW ORLEANS CENTER FOR CREATIVE ARTS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF WWOZ INC ↗
- Who funds New Orleans Ballet Association ↗
- Who funds OCHSNER CLINIC FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BUREAU OF GOVERNMENTAL RESEARCH INC ↗
- Who funds BRIDGE HOUSE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds YOUNG ASPIRATIONS YOUNG ARTISTS INC ↗
- Who funds Young Audiences of Louisiana Inc ↗
- Who funds Tennessee WilliamsNew Orleans Literary Festival ↗
- Who funds KID SMART ↗
- Who funds FRENCH QUARTER FESTIVALS INC ↗
- Who funds DANCING GROUNDS ↗
- Who funds NEW ORLEANS AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM OF ART CULTURE AND HISTORY ↗
- Who funds Junior Achievement of Greater New Orleans Inc ↗
- Who funds ARC ATHENS INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED NEGRO COLLEGE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC FOUNDATION OF SOUTH LOUISIANA ↗
- Who funds PELICAN INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY ↗
- Who funds Crimestoppers Inc ↗
- Who funds LIBERTY'S KITCHEN 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: Goldring Family Foundation · Baptist Community Ministries · Eugenie & Joseph Jones Family Foundation · Keller Family Foundation · The Greater New Orleans Foundation · Patrick F Taylor Foundation · Gayle and Tom Benson Charitable Foundation · Ella West Freeman Foundation · Gustaf Westfeldt McIlhenny Family Founda · The Usdin-Weil Foundation · Woldenberg Foundation · Louise H Moffett Family 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 Helis 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.
- Shatterproof a Nonprofit Corporation — 2% 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 Helis Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Helis 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.