· Private foundation
The Lee Bruno 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
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 $10k3 grants · $20k
- $10k–50k13 grants · $200k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $470k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ST ROSE ACADEMY | $100,000 |
| CATHEDRAL OF ST PAUL | $100,000 |
| HOLY FAMILY CATHOLIC SCHOOL | $85,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $75,000 |
| CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $60,000 |
| FOCUS MISSION FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| BENEDICTINE SISTERS OF CULLMAN ALABAMA | $20,000 |
| TRIUMPH SERVICES | $20,000 |
| UNITED ABILITY | $20,000 |
| HOLY FAMILY CRISTO REY CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL | $15,000 |
| THE EXCEPTIONAL FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| HER CHOICE BIRMINGHAM | $15,000 |
| ROAD TO PURITY | $15,000 |
| THE BELL CENTER | $12,500 |
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, $174k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, 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 +50% since the first grant, against +25% for the ones you funded once.
43 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2025, 22 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, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $20k 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
- HCHer Choice Birmingham Inc9× · 2017–2025 · $300k · revenue +35%
- ACAlabama Children's Hospital Foundation5× · 2017–2025 · $185k · revenue +81%
- TBTHE BELL CENTER FOR EARLY INTERVENTION PROGRAMS8× · 2017–2025 · $170k · revenue +141%
Funded once
- GSGOOD SHEPHERD CATHOLIC CHURCHone grant, 2022 · $75k
- GSGOOD SHEPARD CATHOLIC CHURCHone grant, 2021 · $75k
- SEST ELIAS FOUNDATIONone grant, 2023 · $50k
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.
The mission of Children's of Alabama is to provide the finest pediatric health services to all children in an environment that fosters excellence in research and medical education. Children's will be an advocate for all children and work…
Ave Maria Communications (AMC)employs radio, internet and other media to offer news, analysis, teaching, devotion and music to demonstrate Catholic values.
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.
Catholics for Choice - which serves the pro-choice Catholic majority - encounters, educates, and emboldens people of faith who support reproductive freedom. Catholics for Choice believes healthcare is a human right and that includes access…
Mercy Health will provide assistance, support and direction to all of the health care institutions and activities operated and maintained by its Subsidiaries. The mission of Mercy Health in performing these activities shall be to provide a…
Catholic answers is an apostolate dedicated to serving christ by bringing the fullness of catholic truth to the world. we help good catholics become better catholics, bring former catholics home, and lead non-catholics into the fullness of…
Life teen is a missionary youth movement within the catholic church. we believe that eucharist-based ministry has the power to transform teens, transform parishes, and transform culture. our top priorities are resourcing and (continued on…
Childcare Worldwide (CW) transforms children's lives by exposing them to the gospel of Jesus Christ, providing for their physical needs, and sponsoring their education. We connect sponsors with children through Christ-based life centers.…
Divine Mercy University is a Catholic graduate school of psychology and counseling, founded in 1999. The University is dedicated to the scientific study of psychology and counseling with a Catholic understanding of the person, marriage and…
Our mission is to offer gospel-focused, life-affirming choices, education and compassionate counsel to those facing pregnancy related decisions.
Adoption, maternity & parenting services, family & individual counseling, children's support groups
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Ability Inc and the most unlike its peers is Magic City Harvest 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 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 4% 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.
35 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. 35 of the 62 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 Her Choice Birmingham Inc ↗
- Who funds Alabama Children's Hospital Foundation ↗
- Who funds THE BELL CENTER FOR EARLY INTERVENTION PROGRAMS ↗
- Who funds SMILE-A-MILE ↗
- Who funds MITCHELL'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds MAGIC CITY HARVEST INC ↗
- Who funds HOLY FAMILY CRISTO REY CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds Oasis Counseling for Women and Children ↗
- Who funds ST MARK THE EVANGELIST CONFERENCE ST VINCENT DE PAUL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds THE EXCEPTIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MAGIC MOMENTS ↗
- Who funds UNITED ABILITY INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED FOR LIFE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNLESS U INC ↗
- Who funds BIG OAK RANCH INC ↗
- Who funds LA PROMESA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHRISTLIFE INC ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S HEALTH SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds BIRMINGHAM CHILDREN'S THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds Road to Purity Inc ↗
- Who funds TRIUMPH SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds PRESCHOOL PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds ETERNAL WORD TELEVISION NETWORK 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 · Susan Mott Webb Charitable Trust · Protective Life Foundation · Hill Crest Foundation Inc · The Joseph S Bruno Charitable Foundation · Robert R Meyer Foundation · Alabama Power Foundation Inc · The Daniel Foundation of Alabama · Junior League of Birmingham Inc · The Hugh Kaul Foundation · Dunn-French Foundation · Mike and Gillian Goodrich 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 Lee Bruno 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.
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.