· Private foundation
The Rao 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 $10k2 grants · $5k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $149k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $130k
- $250k+1 grant · $250k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ROCKY MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE | $250,000 |
| PEDIPLACE | $130,000 |
| JOURNEY TO DREAM | $36,180 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF GREATER TARRANT COUNTY | $25,000 |
| DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $25,000 |
| UKRANIAN ACTION | $22,650 |
| MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF NORTH TEXAS | $20,000 |
| GIVING GRACE | $10,000 |
| CORNELL LAB OF ORNITHOLOGY | $10,000 |
| HOPEKIDS | $2,500 |
| CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY ACTION | $2,500 |
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 (FY18–24, $50k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 78% 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.
14 repeat relationships — 5 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, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $83k 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
Rocky Mountain Institute6× · 2019–2024 · $638k · revenue +227%- PIPEDIPLACE INC5× · 2020–2024 · $314k · revenue +6%
- CCCLIMATE CENTRAL INC5× · 2018–2023 · $128k · revenue +149%
Funded once
- UOUNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AUSTINone grant, 2023 · $1.0M
- NTNORTH TEXAS BROADCASTING INCone grant, 2023 · $35k
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INCone grant, 2022 · $25k · revenue +13%
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.
To research and develop centrist policy ideas.
Shape and drive bold policy solutions to achieve equitable carbon-neutral economies.
The climate institute is organized for the purpose of educating the general public and policy makers as to the gravity of potential climate change, exploring the policy implications of the latest scientific findings on climate modelling…
Climateworks foundation's mission is to connect philanthropy, grantees, and strategic partners to build and deliver high-impact climate solutions that benefit all people.
Climate group advances climate action by mobilizing business and government leadership to drive systemic decarbonization across energy, transport, and industry, while engaging the public through large-scale convenings and global platforms.…
Nrgi envisions a world where natural resources enable fair, prosperous and sustainable societies, instead of undermining them. nrgi exists because decisions about how natural resources are governed determine the well-being of people in…
Project drawdown's mission is to drive meaningful climate action by advancing science-based solutions and strategies. project drawdown's work is focused on three pillars: science - advancing science-based climate solutions and strategies;…
The mission of the global alliance for improved nutrition (gain) is to improve the consumption of healthier diets for all, especially the most vulnerable, by improving the availability, affordability, desirability, and sustainability of…
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)
Increase societal understanding of the earth system through scientific research and education.
Crisis group works to prevent and resolve deadly conflict around the world by informing and influencing the perceptions and actions of policymakers and other key conflict actors. to this end, we endeavour to talk to all sides and provide…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of North Texas and the most unlike its peers is Sandberg Goldberg Bernthal Family Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 36 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) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 2% 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.
22 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. 22 of the 33 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 Rocky Mountain Institute ↗
- Who funds PEDIPLACE INC ↗
- Who funds Lewisville Education Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds CLIMATE CENTRAL INC ↗
- Who funds BLUEROOF FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF GREATER TARRANT COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds Ukrainian Action ↗
- Who funds MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF NORTH TEXAS ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF ↗
- Who funds GIVING GRACE INC ↗
- Who funds INTERFAITH MINISTRIES OF DENTON INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH TEXAS FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds Sankara Nethralaya OM Trust Inc ↗
- Who funds CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY ACTION ↗
- Who funds HOPEKIDS INC ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds SANDBERG GOLDBERG BERNTHAL FAMILY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ST BALDRICK'S FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds PRO PUBLICA INC ↗
- Who funds NATYAVEDA ↗
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: Coserv Charitable Foundation · Texas Instruments Foundation · McKesson Foundation Inc · Communities Foundation of Texas Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Charities Aid Foundation America · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc
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 Rao 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 Rao Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Rao 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.