· Private foundation
The Johnson Foundation Inc
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 $10k1 grant · $3k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $65k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $150k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LAW SCHOOL | $100,000 |
| SALISBURY ACADEMY | $50,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $20,000 |
| PARTNERS IN LEARNING | $20,000 |
| NOVANT FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| NAZARETH CHILD & FAMILY CONNECTION | $10,000 |
| MARLIE DRU SULLIVAN FOUNDATION | $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, $52k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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 +78% since the first grant, against -90% for the ones you funded once.
13 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 3 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, 44% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $123k 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
- SASALISBURY ACADEMY2× · 2024–2025 · $150k · revenue +43%
- NCNAZARETH CHILDREN'S HOME INC3× · 2017–2025 · $27k · revenue +20%
- RHROWAN HELPING MINISTRIES2× · 2017–2019 · $25k · revenue +78%
Funded once
- BTBELL TOWER GREEN INCone grant, 2018 · $400k · revenue -90%
- SGSHELTER GUARDIANS INCone grant, 2019 · $250k · revenue -91%
- PPPIEDMONT PLAYERS THEATRE INCone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue -8%
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.
Salisbury-rowan community action agency is committed to providing education, child care, and other services to the underprivileged residents of salisbury, north carolina and two surrounding counties.
In the spirit of keeping our focus on patient-centered, equitable and compassionate care while ensuring our organization is sustainable for future generations, we have restated our mission, vision and values and are now guided by our…
Promoting, enhancing and managing the development of the commercial, business, economic, residential, civic, and historical development of downtown salisbury, north carolina.
The organization provides shelter for homeless, abused, and abandoned animals. the shelter also provides an opportunity for adoption of these animals
Mission novant health exists to improve the health of our communities, one person at a time. vision we, the novant health team, will deliver the most remarkable patient experience, in every dimension, every time. values -compassion: we…
Endangered animal rescue and adoption
Our mission is to rescue, rehabilitate and release injured, orphaned and ill local wildlife. we focus on wildlife conservation education so that people and animals can live in productive harmony.
Mission novant health exists to improve the health of our communities, one person at a time. vision we, the novant health team, will deliver the most remarkable patient experience, in every dimension, every time. values -compassion: we…
To raise funds for cultural arts for arts & cultural organizations within rowan county. to grant out funds to arts & cultural organizations for the creative arts, advance arts education and development of the salisbury/rowan cultural…
The mission and purpose of the organization is to provide support for pediatric cancer patients and their families of eastern north carolina including but not limited to volunteers, education, and community awareness.
Promoting economic and industrial development in rowan county, north carolina
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Nazareth Children's Home Inc and the most unlike its peers is Marlie Dru Sullivan 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 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 BELL TOWER GREEN INC ↗
- Who funds SHELTER GUARDIANS INC ↗
- Who funds SALISBURY ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds NAZARETH CHILDREN'S HOME INC ↗
- Who funds ROWAN HELPING MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds THE V FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PIEDMONT PLAYERS THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds SALISBURY SYMPHONY INC ↗
- Who funds THE Center for Disordered Eating dba Carolina Resource Center for Eating ↗
- Who funds MARLIE DRU SULLIVAN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VICTORY JUNCTION GANG CAMP 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: Foundation for the Carolinas · Margaret C Woodson Foundation Inc · The Wallace Family Foundation Inc · The Hurley-Trammell Foundation · Brady Foundation · The Cannon Foundation Inc · Duke Energy Foundation · 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 Johnson Foundation Inc 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 Johnson Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to The Johnson Foundation Inc 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.