· Private foundation
The Karakin Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k20 grants · $80k
- $10k–50k48 grants · $1.1M
- $50k–250k36 grants · $4.3M
- $250k+17 grants · $11M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF ABILENE | $3,000,000 |
| ABILENE YOUTH SPORTS AUTHORITY | $1,000,000 |
| GROVER NELSON PARK ZOOLOGICAL FOUNDATION | $1,000,000 |
| WEST TEXAS REHABILITATION CENTER FOUNDATION | $833,333 |
| HENDRICK MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION | $800,000 |
| HARDIN-SIMMONS UNIVERSITY | $500,000 |
| HEALTHY KIDS BRIGHTER FUTURE INC | $500,000 |
| EVERFREE | $500,000 |
| CHENLA CHILDREN'S HEALTH INC | $410,000 |
| NEUROKIDS | $373,136 |
| APOPO US INC | $350,000 |
| TERREWODE WOMEN'S FUND | $300,000 |
| ADMIRAL NIMITZ FOUNDATION | $300,000 |
| OPERATION FINALLY HOME | $250,000 |
| MATERNAL HEALTH HOPE FUND | $250,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $4.6M) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 75% 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 15% of The Karakin Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 46% of the giving stays in TX; read by stated purpose it is 37% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +14% since the first grant, against +3% for the ones you funded once.
111 repeat relationships — 74 still active in FY2024, 37 since wound down; 32 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 74% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3.4M 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
- HLHEALTHY LEARNERS INC5× · 2020–2024 · $2.3M · revenue +507%
- AYABILENE YOUTH SPORTS AUTHORITY2× · 2023–2024 · $2.0M · revenue +34% · 100% of their budget
- GNGROVER NELSON PARK ZOOLOGICAL FOUNDATION2× · 2023–2024 · $2.0M · revenue ×67
Funded once
- AIABILENE IMPROVEMENT CORPORATIONone grant, 2021 · $4.0M · revenue -90%
- TTTEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES CENTERone grant, 2022 · $500k
All Kind Animal Initiativeone grant, 2023 · $333k · revenue -3%
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.
As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.
To facilitate research and development within the texas a&m university system and selected other entities.
The foreign policy research institute (frpi) is dedicated to producing the highest quality scholarship and nonpartisan policy analysis focused on crucial foreign policy and national security challenges facing the united states. we educate…
The texas tribune promotes civic engagement and public education across the state by producing and sharing for free public data interactives, statewide events and intensive and daily reporting on texas public policy, politics and current…
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…
Christianity Today is a global community inspired by evangelical conviction to advance the stories and ideas of the kingdom of God. Our mission is to elevate the storytellers and sages of the global church.
The quincy institute promotes ideas that move u.s. foreign policy away from endless war and toward vigorous diplomacy in the pursuit of international peace. qi's staff and non-resident experts expose the costs and consequences of…
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
Glasstire is a website about visual art in Texas. Our mission is to expand the conversation about visual art in Texas.
The Progress Texas Institute provides research and strategic communications on issues with the ultimate goal of increasing civic engagement.
To strengthen the association of former students, promote the interests and welfare of texas a&m university, perpetuate ties of affection and esteem formed in university or college days, and serve the student body.
Foreign Policy For America is a nonpartisan advocacy organization founded to strengthen support for principled American engagement in the world.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Heritage Foundation and the most unlike its peers is The National World War Ii 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.
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 26 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
185 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 185 of the 219 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 ABILENE HERITAGE SQUARE INC ↗
- Who funds ABILENE IMPROVEMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF ABILENE ↗
- Who funds HEALTHY LEARNERS INC ↗
- Who funds ABILENE YOUTH SPORTS AUTHORITY ↗
- Who funds GROVER NELSON PARK ZOOLOGICAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SEMPER FI & AMERICA'S FUND ↗
- Who funds Maternal Help Hope Fund ↗
- Who funds ABILENE CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds HARDIN-SIMMONS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds GARY SINISE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HOMES FOR OUR TROOPS INC ↗
- Who funds CURE INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds TERREWODE WOMENS FUND ↗
- Who funds ARCA ↗
- Who funds Water to Thrive ↗
- Who funds FUND FOR GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS INC ↗
- Who funds West Texas Rehabilitation Center Foundation ↗
- Who funds PROJECT EXPEDITE JUSTICE ↗
- Who funds Hendrick Medical Center Foundation ↗
- Who funds Willow International Everfree ↗
- Who funds OPERATION FINALLY HOME ↗
- Who funds APOPO US INC ↗
- Who funds Food Bank of West Central Texas ↗
- Who funds 4 PAWS FOR ABILITY INC ↗
- Who funds EMERGENCY USA ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF ABILENE INC ↗
- Who funds TEAM RUBICON INC ↗
- Who funds TOGETHER WE RISE ↗
- Who funds WATSI INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST MARITIME CENTER ↗
- Who funds FOLDS OF HONOR NEW MEXICO ↗
- Who funds UNITED SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS INC ↗
- Who funds FISHER HOUSE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ALL HANDS AND HEARTS SMART RESPONSE 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 Legett Foundation · Kickapoo Springs Foundation · Dian Graves Owen Foundation · Community Foundation of Abilene · Shelton Family Foundation · Barber Foundation · Greathouse Foundation · The Massey Family Charitable Trust · The Robison Excelsior Foundation · American Electric Power Foundation · Abilene Christian University · Bradley Impact Fund Inc
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 Karakin 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.
- Trustees of Boston University — 12% of income from government
- Pivot Inc — 2% of income from government
- Southeastern Guide Dogs 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 Karakin Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Karakin 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.