· Private foundation
The James Milton and Sallie R Johnson Foundation
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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 51% of THE JAMES MILTON AND SALLIE R JOHNSON 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 · FY2025
- Under $10k15 grants · $46k
- $10k–50k14 grants · $240k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $563k
- $250k+1 grant · $1.0M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL ALABAMA | $1,045,000 |
| WOLFORD COLLEGE | $134,225 |
| BIRMINGHAM MUSEUM OF ART | $120,122 |
| COMMUNITY FOODBANK OF CENTRAL ALABAMA | $100,000 |
| EMPOWER COMMUNITY SCHOOL | $83,333 |
| MODERN CLASSROOMS PROJECT | $75,000 |
| BIRMINGHAM EDUCATION FOUNDATION (SAIL PROGRAM) | $50,000 |
| O'NEAL LIBRARY CAPITAL CAMPAIGN | $30,000 |
| THE LOVELADY CENTER | $25,000 |
| STAIR | $25,000 |
| FOUNDATIONS EARLY LEARNING CENTER | $25,000 |
| ALABAMA APPLESEED CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE | $20,000 |
| RED MOUNTAIN THEATRE | $15,000 |
| YWCA OF CENTRAL ALABAMA | $15,000 |
| GRACE KLEIN COMMUNITY INC | $15,000 |
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 (FY19–25, $167k) 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.
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 +41% since the first grant, against +18% for the ones you funded once.
45 repeat relationships — 30 still active in FY2025, 15 since wound down; 6 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, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $141k 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
UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL ALABAMA INC2× · 2020–2025 · $1.1M · revenue +21%
WOFFORD COLLEGE8× · 2017–2025 · $800k · revenue +52%- TMTHE MODERN CLASSROOMS PROJECT INC2× · 2024–2025 · $150k · revenue +11%
Funded once
- AFART FUND INCone grant, 2024 · $117k
- AAALABAMA AEROSPACE & AVIATION HIGH SCHOOLone grant, 2024 · $100k · revenue 0%
- TWTHE WOMEN'S FUNDone grant, 2017 · $63k
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 work in partnership with families and organizations to ensure that all alabama children (birth to five) get everything they need to develop to their fullest potential.
To glorify god by providing a quality, christ-centered education which challenges students and teachers to maximize their potential so that graduates are prepared to further their education while becoming productive christian citizens.
Operation of a public charter school in Mobile Alabama.
To support the university of alabama at birmingham in its scientific and educational mission, including managing and disbursing funds, acquiring real property, and providing operational flexibility.
The alabama best practices center helps teachers and administrators develop the competence, commitment and courage to do whatever it takes to improve student learning.
Birmingham Promise supports and prepares every Birmingham City School student in achieving economic security, mobility, and prosperity by providing connections to high-quality work experiences and last-dollar tuition scholarships
Operation of a public charter school in Livingston, AL.
Crestwood day school is a private elementary (k-6th) grade school in alabama.
The alabama alliance netowrk works to strengthen and enhance alabama's civic society through research, education, and grantmaking
The mission of ACLCE is to prepare youth to become active, engaged, and informed participants in a democratic society.
Arborbrook Christian Academy partners with parents to equip, empower, and encourage students to cultivate godly character, pursue life-long learning, and love the Lord Jesus Christ.
Operation of a public charter school in Livingston, AL.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Stair of Birmingham and the most unlike its peers is Turning Point Foundation. 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 29 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
48 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. 48 of the 85 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 UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL ALABAMA INC ↗
- Who funds WOFFORD COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds WOODLAWN UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds Birmingham Zoo Inc ↗
- Who funds EMPOWER SCHOOLS OF ALABAMA ↗
- Who funds THE MODERN CLASSROOMS PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S FOUNDATION OF ALABAMA ↗
- Who funds STAIR OF BIRMINGHAM ↗
- Who funds BIRMINGHAM EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ALABAMA AEROSPACE & AVIATION HIGH SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOOD BANK OF CENTRAL ALABAMA ↗
- Who funds PRESCHOOL PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds COLLEGE CHOICE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GLENWOOD INC ↗
- Who funds ALABAMA APPLESEED CENTER FOR LAW AND JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds GRACE KLEIN COMMUNITY INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF JEMISON PARK ↗
- Who funds KIWANIS CLUB OF BIRMINGHAM ↗
- Who funds FREEDOM RAIN INC ↗
- Who funds WIMBERLY HOUSE MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds SMILE-A-MILE ↗
- Who funds IS-ABLE MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds FRESHWATER LAND TRUST ↗
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: The Daniel Foundation of Alabama · The Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham · Mike and Gillian Goodrich Foundation · Protective Life Foundation · Dunn-French Foundation · Hill Crest Foundation Inc · Altecstyslinger Foundation · Alabama Power Foundation Inc · Susan Mott Webb Charitable Trust · Junior League of Birmingham Inc · Robert R Meyer Foundation · Campbell Estelle S Char 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 James Milton and Sallie R Johnson 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.
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% 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 James Milton and Sallie R Johnson Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The James Milton and Sallie R Johnson 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.