· Private foundation
The Melrose 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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| KNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF ART | $5,000 |
| INTERFAITH HEALTH CENTER | $5,000 |
| SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK OF EAST TN | $2,000 |
| VOLUNTEER MINISTRY CENTER | $2,000 |
| EMERALD YOUTH FOUNDATION | $1,500 |
| BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF EAST TN | $1,000 |
| SHANGRI-LA THER ACADEMY OF RIDING | $1,000 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF THE TN VALLEY | $1,000 |
| UNIVERSITY HEALTH SYSTEM INC | $1,000 |
| FISH HOSPITALITY PANTRIES | $1,000 |
| WESLEY HOUSE COMMUNITY CENTER | $1,000 |
| TENNESSEE WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| HELEN ROSS MCNABB FOUNDATION | $900 |
| LEGAL AID OF EAST TENNESSEE | $750 |
| Individual grant recipient | $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, $12k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, 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.
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 +48% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
51 repeat relationships — 32 still active in FY2025, 19 since wound down; 2 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $800 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
- IHINTERFAITH HEALTH CENTER9× · 2017–2025 · $44k · revenue +256%
- KMKNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF ART9× · 2017–2025 · $37k · revenue +41%
- VMVOLUNTEER MINISTRY CENTER9× · 2017–2025 · $18k · revenue +142%
Funded once
- KZKNOXVILLE ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS INCone grant, 2024 · $300 · revenue 0%
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 academy serves as the local medica society for physicians of knox county and surrounding counties in east tennessee. its purpose is to afford a medium for free discussion and exchange of ideas among physicians.
To provide no-cost health care to families who have no insurance and do not qualify for the states low income insurance program.
To provide affordable housing to low and moderate income persons in east tennessee through first-time homebuyer education; assist with mortgage loans, downpayments, and closing costs; build new single family housing; develop multi-family…
Knoxville montessori association, inc. prepares children for the world. our goal is to help your child become an independent, responsible adult with a passionate lifelong love of learning.
To promote, assist, and support the development, growth, and sustainability of child advocacy centers in their service to at-risk, abused, and neglected children and their families.
The Childrens Center of Knoxvilles program is planned to help each child build upon his or her strengths and to enhance the childs opportunities for growth where needed. Social skills, emotional health, self development and education are…
Tennessee children's home, inc. is a not-for-profit organization that provides a home for neglected and pre-delinquent children who have an unstable family situation and who are beginning to develop problems which cannot be solved in their…
Educate preschool through twelfth grade children in a Christian environment while developing them spiritually,academically, emotionally, and physically with Jesus Christ as their standard and the Bible as their foundation.
To provide services for senior citizens in knox county
Primarily to spread the gospel of jesus christ in downtown knoxville, tennessee by serving the community of the greater knoxville area through the provision of services, resources, worship, teaching, fellowship and networking capabilities.
To put christian principles into practice through programs and activities that develop the spirit, mind and body of youth, adults and families in knoxville, tn and surrounding communities. the ymca encourages growth for youth development,…
By creating a safe and structured two year residential program the Hope House of Tennessee will aim to equip and empower personal and educational growth economic self-sufficiency and a deeper understanding of Christs unconditional love.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Young Women's Christian Association and the most unlike its peers is Girl Scout Council of the Southern Appalachians 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 48 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% 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 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.
32 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. 32 of the 54 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 INTERFAITH HEALTH CENTER ↗
- Who funds KNOXVILLE MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds VOLUNTEER MINISTRY CENTER ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY HEALTH SYSTEM INC ↗
- Who funds WESLEY HOUSE COMMUNITY CENTER CO ↗
- Who funds EMERALD YOUTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SHANGRI-LA THERAPEUTIC ACADEMY OF RIDING INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF THE TENNESSEE VALL ↗
- Who funds HELEN ROSS MCNABB CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds HOLSTON HOME FOR CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds SERTOMA CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY SCHOOL OF THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds THE FLORENCE CRITTENTON AGENCY INC ↗
- Who funds IJAMS NATURE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds KNOXVILLE FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK OF EAST TENNESSEE ↗
- Who funds LEGAL AID OF EAST TENNESSEE ↗
- Who funds JOY OF MUSIC YOUTH MUSIC SCHOOL CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds GIRL SCOUT COUNCIL OF THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS INC ↗
- Who funds Tennessee Lions Charities Inc ↗
- Who funds TENNESSEE WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds KNOXVILLE SYMPHONY SOCIETY INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds THE MUSE KNOXVILLE ↗
- Who funds KNOX AREA RESCUE MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds HOSPITALITY PANTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF EAST TENNESSEE INC ↗
- Who funds HELEN ROSS MCNABB FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Young Mens Christian Association ↗
- Who funds THE YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION ↗
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: East Tennessee Foundation · Akima Club Inc · Haslam Family Foundation Inc · The Clayton Homes Foundation · United Way of Greater Knoxvilleinc · Thompson Charitable Foundation · The Clayton Family Foundation · Trinity Health Foundation of East Tennessee · The Aslan Foundation · Lawson Family Foundation · The Boyd Foundation · Bill and Crissy Haslam 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 Melrose 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Melrose Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Melrose 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.