· Private foundation
The Mousetrap Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
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 · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $45k
- $50k–250k13 grants · $1.4M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| HOWARD UNIVERSITY | $220,946 |
| STANFORD LAW SCHOOL | $200,000 |
| GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER | $150,000 |
| PIEDMONT ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL | $125,000 |
| AYUDA INC | $125,000 |
| THE FAUQUIER FREE CLINIC | $100,000 |
| NATIONAL MUSEUM | $100,000 |
| BEST BUDDIES | $100,000 |
| FORD'S THEATRE | $60,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA | $50,000 |
| FENWICK FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| GLACIER NATIONAL PARK CONSERVANCY | $50,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN | $50,000 |
| CARROLL CHILD CARE | $25,000 |
| WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH | $20,000 |
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, $1.5M) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 86% 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 12% of The Mousetrap 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, 35% of the giving stays in VA; read by stated purpose it is 37% — more 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 +82% since the first grant, against +16% for the ones you funded once.
18 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 9 since wound down; 6 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, 69% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $385k 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
- AIAYUDA INC8× · 2017–2024 · $1.3M · revenue +269%
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY8× · 2017–2024 · $1.2M · revenue +47%- TPTHE PIEDMONT ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL8× · 2017–2024 · $958k · revenue +161%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2023 · $175k
- RFREPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM FOR ALL FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $100k · revenue +496%
- MLMICHIGAN LAW SCHOOLone 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.
Preservation of civil liberties through litigation and public education.
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
A nonprofit scientific research organization that develops vaccines and antibodies for hiv, tuberculosis, and emerging infectious diseases.
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
Wri is committed to creating change that improves people's lives and ensures the natural world can thrive. (see schedule o)wri's bold vision requires a formula for success we call "count it. change it. scale it.":- count it: our work is…
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…
Eastern national promotes the public's understanding and support of america's national parks and other public trust partners by providing quality educational experiences, products and services.
The university of virginia investment management company (uvimco) is organized to invest funds on behalf of the rector and visitors of the university of virginia (the university or uva) and university-associated organizations (uaos).
See schedule onorc at the university of chicago conducts research and data science on critical societal issues to guide decision-making and the development of programs and public policy. our experts identify relationships and trends, and…
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
Help improve policy and decision making through research and analysis.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Animal Nations Dba Redrover and the most unlike its peers is Well Done 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.
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 39 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) — 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 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.
34 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. 34 of the 52 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 AYUDA INC ↗
- Who funds GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE PIEDMONT ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE HOWARD UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds FAUQUIER FREE CLINIC INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR INNOVATION INC ↗
- Who funds GLACIER NATIONAL PARK CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA PUBLIC ACCESS PROJECT ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds Well Done Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds FENWICK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Best Buddies International Inc ↗
- Who funds REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM FOR ALL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FORD'S THEATRE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds University of Michigan ↗
- Who funds THE LAND TRUST OF VIRGINIA INC ↗
- Who funds THE CHEHALIS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION IN THE UNITED STATES ↗
- Who funds American Bird Conservancy ↗
- Who funds International Rescue Committee INC ↗
- Who funds Children's Home Society of Virginia ↗
- Who funds UNITED ANIMAL NATIONS DBA REDROVER ↗
- Who funds COOPERATIVE DEVELOPMENT SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds AARP FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE INNOCENCE PROJECT 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: Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Mousetrap 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.
- Best Buddies International Inc — 4% 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 Mousetrap Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Mousetrap 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.