· Private foundation
The Powell 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 $10k5 grants · $29k
- $10k–50k20 grants · $438k
- $50k–250k16 grants · $1.2M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| EAST TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY | $235,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE | $200,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE | $75,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE | $75,000 |
| CRUMLEY HOUSE | $60,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE | $50,000 |
| BUMC | $50,000 |
| BUMC | $50,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE | $50,000 |
| BUMC | $50,000 |
| BUMC | $50,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE | $50,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE | $50,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE | $50,000 |
| EAST TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY | $50,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 92% 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.
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 6% of The Powell 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, 100% of the giving stays in TN; read by stated purpose it is 96% — less 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 +132% since the first grant, against -28% for the ones you funded once.
23 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2024, 16 since wound down; 4 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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $84k 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
- ETEAST TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION6× · 2017–2022 · $3.1M · revenue +29%
- TUTHE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE FOUNDATION INC6× · 2017–2022 · $1.7M · revenue +178%
- UWUNITED WAY OF EAST TENNESSEE HIGHLANDS INC6× · 2017–2022 · $60k · revenue +132%
Funded once
- MSMOUNTAIN STATES FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $5k
- FHFRONTIER HEALTH FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue -28%
- FOFRIENDS OF COAL AUTO FAIRone grant, 2017 · $2k
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 organizations mission is to promote and maintain a business climate favorable to businesses in tennessee.
To maintain high standards for nursing homes in the state of tennessee and to seek the solutions to problems common to members of the association.
To conserve the unique character of tennessee's natural and historic landscapes and sites for future generations.
The mission of the governor's foundation for health and wellness is to encourage and enable more tennesseans to lead healthier lives.
To promote and support literacy, scientific, educational,scholarship,research, and developmental goals at tennessee state university.
Operation of public tv station.
To surround students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life.
The united way of south central tennessee's mission is to improve lives by advancing opportunities for education, health, and financial stability for all. its vision is to be the primary community solutions leader for human services.
Convene passionate, collaborative partners to help build bold, data-driven systems and solutions that promote healthy communities for all
Nashville public radio's mission is to be the most trusted & independent nashville voice, connecting our communities through non-partisan journalism, compelling storytelling, civil conversation and music discovery.
To advance state policies and practices that ensure all tennessee children from birth through 3rd grade get the high quality early education they need to power our state's future.
Leadership tennessee fosters collaborative, non-partisan dialogue on issues of state importance, by connecting and deploying a network of diverse leaders and engaged citizens.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Way of East Tennessee Highlands Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Coalition for Kids 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 31 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 EAST TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF EAST TENNESSEE HIGHLANDS INC ↗
- Who funds TENNESSEE SPORTS HALL OF FAME INC ↗
- Who funds The Coalition for Kids Inc ↗
- Who funds JOHNSON CITY SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds HANDS ON DISCOVERY CENTER ↗
- Who funds BALLAD HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MOUNTAIN MISSION SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds MOUNTAIN STATES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FRONTIER HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
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: Eastman Credit Union · Food City Charitable Foundation · Tennessee Health Foundation Inc · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · American Endowment Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · 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 Powell 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 Powell Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Powell 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.