· Private foundation
The John Russell Thomas Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $8k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $62k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $105k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA | $105,000 |
| CENTRAL ALABAMA COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $25,000 |
| PASTORAL COUNSELING AND TRAINING CENTER INC | $15,000 |
| STEPS MINISTRIES | $12,000 |
| LAKE MARTIN AREA UNITED WAY | $10,000 |
| BAYLOR SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| THE CENTER FOR EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIOP | $3,000 |
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, $90k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 97% 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; 1 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, 86% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $25k 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
- SMSTEPS MINISTRIES7× · 2019–2025 · $68k · revenue +45%
- LMLAKE MARTIN AREA UNITED WAY7× · 2017–2025 · $65k · revenue +44%
- SCSOZO CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL6× · 2017–2022 · $32k · revenue +80%
Funded once
- USUAB SCHOOL OF MEDICINEone grant, 2019 · $100k
- CMCANTERBURY METHODIST CHURCHone grant, 2017 · $5k
- STSKY'S THE LIMIT FUNDgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $3k · revenue +143%
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.
A private institution of higher education, offering both undergraduate and graduate courses to students.
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.
The mission of christian services for children in alabama is to show the love of christ by providing counseling and other related services to children and their families.
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.
Services include, but are not limited to, identification and development of academic leadership talent and programs enabling them to be successful in their roles and to advance the institutions they serve; consultation to academic leaders…
Landmark christian school partners with christian families by equipping college-bound students to embrace a christ-centered worldview, grow as servant leaders, and steward god's unique purpose for their lives.
Southern wesleyan university is a christ-centered, student-focused learning community devoted to transforming lives by challenging students to be dedicated scholars and servant-leaders who impact the world for christ.
Leadership austin connects and develops leaders to courageously engage and transform our communities.
To offer research and technology services to support the life sciences, energy, and environmental protection industries. the organization pursues entrepreneurial and collaborative initiatives to develop and maintain a pipeline of…
The alabama best practices center helps teachers and administrators develop the competence, commitment and courage to do whatever it takes to improve student learning.
We provide exemplary interdisciplinary programs for a community of scholar-practitioners within a distributed learning model grounded in student-driven inquiry and leading to enhanced knowledge.
Summit ministries is an educational christian ministry with the purpose of equipping tomorrow's servant leaders to analyze competing worldviews and champion the christian faith, inspiring each one to love god with all his heart, soul,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Children's Harbor Inc and the most unlike its peers is Alexander City Schools Education Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 25 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 PASTORAL COUNSELING AND TRAINING CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds STEPS MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds LAKE MARTIN AREA UNITED WAY ↗
- Who funds SOZO CHILDREN INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds BAYLOR SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds ALEXANDER CITY SCHOOLS EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HARBOR INC ↗
- Who funds SKY'S THE LIMIT FUND ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CITY YEAR 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: The Community Foundation of Greater Birmingham · Alabama Power Foundation Inc · Hill Crest Foundation Inc · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving 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 John Russell Thomas 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.
- City Year Inc — 11% 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 John Russell Thomas Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The John Russell Thomas 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.