· Private foundation
The Howell Fund
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k5 grants · $9k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $70k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| EPISCOPAL HIGH SCHOOL | $70,000 |
| TIRR FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| STAR OF HOPE | $1,000 |
| KIDS MEALS INC | $1,000 |
| AD PLAYERS AT THE GEORGIA THEATER | $1,000 |
| UNDIES FOR EVERYONE | $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 (FY17–25, $30k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
16 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- HEHAITI EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC2× · 2017–2018 · $40k · revenue +68%
- TFTIRR Foundation5× · 2021–2025 · $24k · revenue +18%
- BCBaylor College of Medicine3× · 2020–2022 · $20k · revenue +47%
Funded once
- SRSpecial Reach Incgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $10k · revenue +241%
- BCBRIGHTON CENTERgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $5k · revenue +59%
The Houston Food Bankgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $5k · 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.
The mission of Collaborative for Children is to meaningfully improve the quality of early childhood education and care for Greater Houston's children through those most influential in their lives.
Arbor research collaborative for health is committed to improving patient care through research that shapes medical policies and practice. in particular, arbor research conducts health outcomes research on chronic disease and end-stage…
To facilitate research and development within the texas a&m university system and selected other entities.
Plant, protect and promote trees all over the greater Houston area.
First3years nurtures early relational and mental health of infants and toddlers in texas. working in deep collaboration with caregivers, parents, and professionals statewide, we cultivate strong early childhood systems, educate our…
As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.
To enrich life through discovery, education, and the conservation of plants and the natural environment.
See schedule ocentral houston champions a thriving downtown by connecting influential leaders through initiatives that advance the future of business and community for all.
ConnectAbility's mission is to empower those with life altering disabilities and their caregivers to reach their fullest potential.
Provider of pediatric healthcare, education, research & community service
Handicap international dba humanity & inclusion (hi) works with people with disabilities and people living in situations of vulnerability, including poverty, exclusion, conflict, and disaster.
Educate, Inspire, Connect and Mobilize Community Leaders to serve and strengthen greater Indianapolis.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Kids' Meals Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Houston Food Bank. 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 39 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 27% 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 16% 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.
17 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. 17 of the 20 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 HAITI EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds TIRR Foundation ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL LYME ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds Baylor College of Medicine ↗
- Who funds STAR OF HOPE MISSION ↗
- Who funds LOCAL INFANT FORMULA FOR EMERGENCIES ↗
- Who funds THE MENNINGER CLINIC ↗
- Who funds Children of Fallen Patriots Foundation ↗
- Who funds Special Reach Inc ↗
- Who funds MEDIA RESEARCH CENTER ↗
- Who funds Leadership Institute ↗
- Who funds ADMIRAL NIMITZ FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds A D Players ↗
- Who funds BRIGHTON CENTER ↗
- Who funds The Houston Food Bank ↗
- Who funds KIDS' MEALS INC ↗
- Who funds Undies for Everyone ↗
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: Greater Houston Community Foundation · The Elkins Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Howell Fund 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 Howell Fund?
Find your warmest path to The Howell Fund 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.