· Private foundation
The Mills 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
92% of The Mills Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Athens Area Community Foundation Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 1 organization directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
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 FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $2k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $25k
- $250k+1 grant · $294k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ATHENS AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $293,650 |
| ALSACST JUDE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL | $25,000 |
| NUCI'S SPACE | $1,500 |
| ST MARY ON THE HILL | $250 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY18–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 25%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 99% of your 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 +94% since the first grant, against +25% for the ones you funded once.
3 repeat relationships — 0 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down; 3 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, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $27k 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
- UCUNBRIDLED CHARITY FOUNDATION3× · 2021–2024 · $8k
- BGBOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF ATHENS INC2× · 2020–2021 · $6k · revenue +94%
- AAATHENS AREA HOMELESS SHELTER INC2× · 2020–2021 · $4k · revenue +5%
Funded once
- RSRoper St Francis Foundationgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $5k · revenue +25%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2018 · $5k
- AAATHENS AREA HUMANE SOCIETY OF CLARKE COUNTY AND SPCA INCgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $1k · revenue +41%
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 organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.
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…
Watsi, inc. is a san francisco-based non-profit organization that directly connects people through technology to fund life-changing healthcare for patients around the world. since launching in 2012, the organization has helped more than…
Provide philanthropic support to firsthealth of the carolinas, inc., a healthcare system exempt from income tax under irs section 501c(3) and 170(b)(1)(a)(iii).
Improve the lives of people with cancer and their families through advocacy, research, and patient support, to ensure everyone has an opportunity to prevent, detect, treat, and survive cancer.
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…
To support and empower all affected by gynecologic cancers through education, research, and public awareness.
Seattle humane promotes the human-animal bond by saving and serving pets in need, regardless of age, ability, circumstance or geography.
The washington humane society protects animals, supports families, and advocates for positive change to create a world where all animals can thrive. we enrich the humanity of our communities by promoting compassion and encouraging people…
ACF is dedicated to supporting and increasing philanthropy by making grants to tax exempt organizations for their charitable, educational, scientific, literary or other 501c3 activities; promoting donor education and engagement, and civic…
To use philanthropic funds to support and accelerate innovation in life sciences and healthcare.
Donor Alliance saves and heals lives through organ and tissue donation. Donor Alliance is one of 55 Federally designated, non-profit organ procurement organizations serving Colorado and most of Wyoming. Additionally, it is a member of the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Athens Area Community Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Nuci Phillips Memorial Foundation Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
12 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. 12 of the 18 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 Athens Area Community Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF ATHENS INC ↗
- Who funds Roper St Francis Foundation ↗
- Who funds ATHENS AREA HOMELESS SHELTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE NUCI PHILLIPS MEMORIAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ATHENS AREA HUMANE SOCIETY OF CLARKE COUNTY AND SPCA INC ↗
- Who funds BLOOD CANCER UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA INC ↗
- Who funds Fantasy Cares ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds Friends of Katahdin Woods & Waters ↗
- Who funds The Center for Investigative Reporting formrly Foundation for National Progress ↗
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: Athens Area Community Foundation Inc · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Mills 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.