How much did THE JOSEPH M RUFFIN FOUNDATION grant in FY2025?

A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 65% of THE JOSEPH M RUFFIN FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars go to organizations outside the IRS cause taxonomy (common for large international and research funders), so a chart would be mostly “unclassified” and misrepresent the portfolio.

02beneath the categories

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.

…and in their own words, year by year

2018

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2019

—

2020

—

2021

—

2022

—

2023

—

2024

—

2025

richmond

Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.

03FY2025 · 16 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2025

$10k–50k14 grants · $354k
$50k–250k2 grants · $140k

$25,500

Median grant

States reached

$13M

Total assets

Largest grants

CHILDREN'S HOME SOCIETY OF VA$80,000
BSMH FOUNDATION$60,000
READ RVA$45,000
FULL CIRCLE GRIEF CENTER$45,000
RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES OF RICHMOND$45,000
RAL ART LEAGUE$38,000
TRI-HOPE MINISTRIES$25,700
SONS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION RICHARD LEE CHAPTER$25,500
ST FRANCIS MANCHESTER$22,700
COVER ONE FOUNDATION$20,800
VIRGINIA LIVING MUSEUM$20,000
BOYS TO MEN MENORTING NETWORK OF VA$15,000
CHARACTER WORKS INC$15,000
OPERATION CATNIP OF RICHMOND$13,500
SPUR N UP HOPE INC$12,800

02The need

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY17–25, $58k) land where the poverty rate runs at 7% — the area typically sits at 9%. 17% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.

03Your edge

repeat funding

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.

22%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$228k · 6 repeat orgs$819k to everyone else

6 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down; 12 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$228k

$399k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+51%

+76%

Still filing today

67%

52%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 15% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $421k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Youth DevelopmentEducationHuman ServicesHealthAnimalsArts & CultureOther

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

JL
JACOBS LADDER INC
3× · 2018–2024 · $51k · revenue +15%
VL
VIRGINIA LIVING MUSEUM
2× · 2022–2025 · $36k · revenue +58%
RF
RAPPAHANNOCK FOUNDATION INC
2× · 2022–2024 · $36k · revenue +51%

Funded once

TV
TUCKAHOE VOLUNTEER RESCUE SQUADgraduated
one grant, 2024 · $51k · revenue +46%
HF
HOUSING FAMILIES FIRSTgraduated
one grant, 2024 · $50k · revenue +123%
CI
CHARACTERWORKS INCgraduated
one grant, 2024 · $25k · revenue +195%

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

Henrico Humane Society Inc

Animal Adoption and Animal Care

Animals

Voices for Virginia's Children

The mission of voices for virginia's children is to champion public policies and legislation that achieve positive and equitable outcomes for young people.

Civil Rights

Virginia Stage Company

Our mission is to enrich, educate, and entertain the region by creating and producing theatrical art of the highest quality.

Arts & Culture

Virginia German Shepherd Rescue Inc

Virginia german shepherd rescue is an all volunteer organization dedicated to the rescue, rehabilitation and re-homing of the german shepherd dog (and sometimes other breeds/mixes). the rescue provide a safe haven for german shepherds who…

Animals

St James's Children's Center

Offering an integrated education program for the growing community of young children in the richmond metropolitan area who might be considered at-risk. providing an enriching and academically competitive preschool and after- school…

Education

St Michael's Episcopal School Inc

St. michael's episcopal school nurtures the spirit, ignites the mind, and celebrates childhood in a community of love, affirmation, and belonging that fosters educational excellence.

Education

Richmond Friends School Inc

Committed to providing a quality educational experience for each child, creating an environment that nutures individual intellectual, emotional, creative, spiritual, and physical gifts within a community.

Education

The Virginia Home

Long-term care for persons with irreversible physical disabilities.

Health

Sfc Virginia

The sfc is organized around connecting foster families and adopters in the fredericksburg area and beyond with dogs and cats who have found themselves in a shelter. virginia is a regional leader in the no-kill movement, but we have a long…

Animals

Good Shepherd Episcopal School

The mission of Good Shepherd Episcopal School is to inspire each child to achieve academic excellence within a diverse, nurturing community that builds character and fosters respect for one another and our shared environment, locally and…

Education

Charterhouse Schools Inc

Charterhouse schools, inc. offers special education for students with autism, neurological differences, and emotional, intellectual and learning challenges. curriculum is based on virginia standards of learning and emphasizes academic,…

Health

Gloucester-Mathews Humane Society

To improve life for all animals by providing temporary shelter, compassionate care, community support, and education. the society accomplishes this through animal sheltering, adoption, community spay and neuter programs and a pet food…

Animals

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Feed More Inc and the most unlike its peers is Virginia Living Museum Inc. 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 25 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 12% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund

3%1/33

the rest of the field

12%

810/6,995

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.

05the grantee network

30 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

29/30

Grantees still filing

28/30

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Other$728,605Youth Development$106,050Human Services$58,375Housing & Shelter$50,000Arts & Culture$47,550Animals$29,300Health$27,200

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.

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.

The Community Foundation IncVA44.8× affinity20 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Community Foundation Inc · Herndon Foundation · The Mary Morton Parsons Foundation · Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation · Richard S Reynolds Foundation · The Pauley Family Foundation · Townebank Foundation · The William H - John G - Emma Scott · Robert G Cabell III and Maude Morgan · Pga Tour Charities Inc · Robert Leroy Atwell and Lucy · The Randolph and Susan Reynolds

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 organisation THE JOSEPH M RUFFIN 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.

2025

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–90%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

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. 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.

05Through Plinth

Through Plinth

Your grantmaking, live and operational

This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: SPUR N UP HOPE INC.

Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk

Financial management

insufficient risk

Limited financial data in public filings.

Track record & reputation

medium risk

4 years of Form 990 filings, still active.

Legal standing

low risk

US 501(c)(3); EIN 823732350 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.

Governance

Live in Plinth

Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.

Compliance & sanctions

Live in Plinth

OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.

Program capacity

Live in Plinth

Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.

Live · Plinth’s real DD engine

Run the actual assessment on SPUR N UP HOPE INC, cold from public data.

Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.

Post-award monitoring · continuous checks

Awaiting reportFinancial stability— Runway not derivable from filings.
On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2025; revenue grew over the period.
On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 15% of their budget — diversified.
Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.

What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.

Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing

Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro

How do I get to The Joseph M Ruffin Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Joseph M Ruffin Foundation through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.

Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.

THE JOSEPH M RUFFIN FOUNDATION

What you funded, over time

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

30 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to The Joseph M Ruffin Foundation?

More from the funding graph

THE JOSEPH M RUFFIN FOUNDATION

What you funded, over time

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

30 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to The Joseph M Ruffin Foundation?

More from the funding graph