· Private foundation
The Hope Initiative for a Better Life 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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 60% of THE HOPE INITIATIVE FOR A BETTER LIFE FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k8 grants · $16k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $91k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| AMERICAN FRIENDS OF LOUVRE | $40,000 |
| AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE VERBIER FESTIVAL | $22,300 |
| THE AMERICAN FRIENDS OF VERSAILLES | $15,000 |
| AMERICAN FRIENDS OF VAUX-LE-VICOMTE | $13,250 |
| Individual grant recipient | $7,500 |
| GASTON LENOTRE SCHOLARSHIP INC | $4,000 |
| TEXAN FRENCH ALLIANCE FOR THE ARTS | $1,600 |
| WOMEN IN PHILANTHROPY OF SARASOTA - SELBY GARDENS | $1,000 |
| FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY | $912 |
| WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN | $500 |
| THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON | $200 |
| AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE OCEAN CLEANUP | $100 |
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 US giving — 88% of grant dollars ($411k). The need read here covers only this US portion; the 12% that went abroad ($56k) is mapped below.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 92% of your 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
Beyond the US — 12% of all-years giving ($56k)
2 countries, by the recipient’s country on the filing.
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. International giving is mapped by the recipient’s country from the same 990 filings; comparable need data isn’t available at that grain.
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 +21% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
13 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2024, 7 since wound down; 6 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, 28% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $77k 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
- AFAMERICAN FRIENDS OF VERSAILLES4× · 2021–2024 · $93k · revenue +246% · 34% of their budget
- HGHouston Grand Opera Association Inc3× · 2019–2021 · $8k · revenue +48%
- FFFOOD FOR THE HUNGRY INC5× · 2020–2024 · $4k · revenue +2%
Funded once
- FOFRIENDS OF VENICE ITALY INCgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $22k · revenue ×688
- VVIRTUOSIone grant, 2017 · $13k
- VHVENITIAN HERITAGE FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $12k
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.
Wmf is the leading independent organization devoted to safeguarding the world's most treasured places to enrich people's lives and build mutual understanding across cultures and communities. the organization is headquartered in new york…
The Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies (FAPE) is dedicated to enhancing the United States' image abroad through American Art. Founded as a public-private, non-partisan partnership in 1986, FAPE works with the U.S. Department…
We believe opera is a uniquely compelling, entertaining and emotionally thrilling art form. our mission is to bring together growing audiences to experience opera's transformative power.
The foundation's mission is to create a series of harmonious, site specific art installations around the world, each of which will provide lasting testimony to the natural beauty of their surroundings. these permanent works will help…
The metropolitan museum of art collects, studies, conserves, and presents significant works of art across all times and cultures in order to connect people to creativity, knowledge, and ideas.
Committed to innovation, the solomon r. guggenheim foundation (the "foundation") collects, (continued on schedule o)
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Food for the Hungry Inc and the most unlike its peers is Friends of Venice Italy Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
15 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. 15 of the 36 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 AMERICAN FRIENDS OF VERSAILLES ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF VENICE ITALY INC ↗
- Who funds MYRIAD USA INC ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY ↗
- Who funds TEXAN-FRENCH ALLIANCE FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds The Versailles Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds Houston Grand Opera Association Inc ↗
- Who funds FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds International Rescue Committee INC ↗
- Who funds Save The Children Federation Inc ↗
- Who funds CROHN'S & COLITIS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds University of Houston Foundation ↗
- Who funds THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE OCEAN CLEANUP FOUNDATION ↗
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization The Hope Initiative for a Better Life 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.
- Save the Children Federation Inc — 30% 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 Hope Initiative for a Better Life Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Hope Initiative for a Better Life 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.