· Private foundation
The Howard 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
100% of The Howard Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Schwab Charitable Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2020, the last year The Howard Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 5 organizations, $46k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
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 · FY2020
- Under $10k12 grants · $18k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $28k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WHITE MEMORIAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH | $18,000 |
| CONVERSE COLLEGE | $10,000 |
| UNITED WAY OF GREATER TRIANGLE | $2,500 |
| FRIENDS OF THE HOWARD HOUSE | $2,500 |
| UNC-CH KENAN FLAGLER BUSINESS SCHOO | $2,000 |
| STEP UP MINISTRIES | $1,500 |
| WAKEMED FOUNDATION | $1,500 |
| YMCA OF THE TRIANGLE ANNUAL FUND | $1,500 |
| NC MUSEUM OF HISTORY | $1,250 |
| NC PUBLIC TV FOUNDATION INC | $1,250 |
| FRIENDS OF THE NC MUSEUM OF NAT SC | $1,000 |
| RALEIGH FINE ARTS SOCIETY INC | $1,000 |
| MEREDITH COLLEGE | $1,000 |
| GRAND TETON NATL PARK FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
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 (FY18–18, $4k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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 +54% since the first grant, against +45% for the ones you funded once.
13 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2020, 0 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2020 (too recent to call). Read against FY2020, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2023, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
CONVERSE UNIVERSITY6× · 2018–2023 · $60k · revenue +54%
GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION5× · 2019–2023 · $10k · revenue +281%- RFRALEIGH FINE ARTS SOCIETY INC3× · 2018–2020 · $3k · revenue +8%
Funded once
- TYThe Young Men's Christian Association of the Triangle Area Inc (4598)graduatedone grant, 2018 · $4k · revenue +45%
- UKUNC-CH Kenan-Flagler Businessone grant, 2018 · $2k
- NCNORTH CAROLINA MUSEUM OF HISTORY ASSOCIATES INCone grant, 2018 · $1k · revenue -36%
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 organize members of the medical profession to advance medical science.
Brevard college is committed to an experiential liberal arts education that encourages personal growth and inspires artistic, intellectual, and social action.
Founded in 1902, barton college is a four-year, private, liberal arts college located in wilson, n.c. the barton experience focuses on academic excellence within a wide range of professional and liberal arts programs leading to…
Northeast college of health sciences (the college) is committed to academic excellence, leadership, and professional best practices in the health sciences.
Greensboro College provides a liberal arts education grounded in the traditions of the United Methodist Church and fosters the intellectual, social, and spiritual development of all students while supporting their individual needs.
At unc health foundation, we inspire philanthropic support for unc health and unc school of medicine that transforms healthcare and provides hope to the people of north carolina and communities around the world.
Marietta college (mc) provides a strong foundation for a lifetime of leadership, critical thinking, and problem solving. we achieve this mission by offering undergraduates a contemporary liberal arts education and graduate students an…
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
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…
Greenville college d/b/a greenville university empowers students for lives of character and service through a transforming christ-centered education in the liberal arts, sciences, and professional studies.
The nc ahec program provides and supports educational activities and services with a focus on primary care in rural communities and those with less access to resources to recruit, train, and retain the workforce needed to create a healthy…
Saint anselm is a catholic, benedictine college providing all of its students a distinctive liberal arts education that incorporates opportunities for professional and career preparation. it does so in a learning community that encourages…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Young Men's Christian Association of the Triangle Area Inc (4598) and the most unlike its peers is Grand Teton National Park Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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. 9 of the 22 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 DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ↗
- Who funds CONVERSE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds The Young Men's Christian Association of the Triangle Area Inc (4598) ↗
- Who funds RALEIGH FINE ARTS SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH CAROLINA MUSEUM OF HISTORY ASSOCIATES INC ↗
- Who funds HOSPICE OF WAKE COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds MEREDITH COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE MEDICAL MINISTRY 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: Bell Koonce Burnette Foundation · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc
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 Howard 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 Howard Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Howard 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.