· Private foundation
The Marilyn and Sonny Oates 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
93% of The Marilyn and Sonny Oates Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Communities Foundation Of Texas Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 10 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2020, the last year The Marilyn and Sonny Oates Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 5 organizations, $10M. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2020
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $115k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $450k
- $250k+3 grants · $9.1M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF DALLAS | $7,000,000 |
| MEDIALLIANCE INTERNATIONAL | $1,100,000 |
| MISSION DIGNITY | $1,000,000 |
| M D ANDERSON CANCER CENTER | $200,000 |
| BAYLOR SCOTT & WHITE HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $150,000 |
| CRYSTAL CHARITY BALL | $100,000 |
| COMMUNITY PARTNERS OF DALLAS | $25,000 |
| STARS SCHOLARSHIP FUND | $25,000 |
| DABS - FRIENDS OF THE DALLAS ARBORETUM | $25,000 |
| WREATHS ACROSS AMERICA | $20,000 |
| PSJA EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| SUSAN G KOMEN RACE FOR THE CURE | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $275k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 82% 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.
16 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2020, 6 since wound down; 14 grantees were first funded in FY2020 (too recent to call). Read against FY2020, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 69% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $263k 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
- TCTHE CRYSTAL CHARITY BALL2× · 2020–2021 · $200k · revenue +32%
- CPCHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES COMMUNITY PARTNERS INC4× · 2018–2024 · $180k · revenue +13%
- SPSAMARITAN'S PURSE2× · 2023–2024 · $120k · revenue +53%
Funded once
- HEHEALTH-TEXAS EDUCATION FUNDBAYLOR FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $100k
- ROREADY OR NOT FOUNDATIONone grant, 2019 · $50k
- PPPATRIOT PAWS SERVICE DOGSgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $50k · revenue +102%
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 the dallas county medical society is to promote public health and advocate for physicians and their relationship with patients, while upholding professionalism in the practice of medicine.
The mission of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council is to drive evidence-based improvement in patient care and health equity throughout the region.
As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.
Memorial hermann health system is a nonprofit, values-driven, community-owned health system dedicated to improving health. our vision is to create healthier communities, now and for generations to come. our values are community,…
The dcms foundation's mission is to improve the quality and distribution of health services throughout dallas county.
Provide dental, general pediatric, and pediatric sub-specialty services, including, but not limited to emergency department coverage, inpatient coverage, orthopedic surgery, and craniofacial orthodontics regardless of payor source or…
Travis county medical society (tcms) represents the medical profession in matters of importance to the membership and the community it serves.
The association's purpose is to promote the role of the pharmacist and the practice of pharmacy in the state of texas.
The texas medical association (tma), the nation's largest and one of the oldest state medical societies, represents over 59,000 physicians and medical students dedicated to enhancing the health of all texans. in collaboration with 110…
To support the mission of Dallas Theological Seminary by offering charitable planned giving and other related services to friends of the Seminary.
Knowing that every child's life is sacred, our promise is to improve the health of every child in our region through the prevention and treatment of illness, disease and injury.
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Communities Foundation of Texas Inc and the most unlike its peers is Friends of the Highland Park Library. 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 44 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 26% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
25 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. 25 of the 46 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 COMMUNITIES FOUNDATION OF TEXAS INC ↗
- Who funds MEDIALLIANCE INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds THE CRYSTAL CHARITY BALL ↗
- Who funds CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES COMMUNITY PARTNERS INC ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAN'S PURSE ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HEALTH SYSTEM OF TEXAS ↗
- Who funds STARS SCHOLARSHIP FUND ↗
- Who funds BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA 571 CIRCLE TEN COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds PATRIOT PAWS SERVICE DOGS ↗
- Who funds MERCY STREET ↗
- Who funds DALLAS FURNITURE BANK ↗
- Who funds FAMILY VIOLENCE PREVENTION SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds CROHN'S & COLITIS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Wreaths Across America ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds WELL COMMUNITY ↗
- Who funds ABILITY CONNECTION TEXAS ↗
- Who funds MEN OF NEHEMIAH INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PSORIASIS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds KIDNEYTEXAS 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: Communities Foundation of Texas Inc · The Dallas Foundation · Texas Instruments Foundation · Hoblitzelle Foundation · W P & Bulah Luse Foundation · The Moody Foundation · Community Foundation of North Texas (Tax · Marilyn Augur Family Foundation · Arkay Foundation Inc · Hegi Family Foundation · The Bill & Katie Weaver Charitable Trust · The Rosewood 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 Marilyn and Sonny Oates 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.
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Find your warmest path to The Marilyn and Sonny Oates 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.