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The Reba & Dave Williams Foundation for Literature & the Arts at a glance

· Private foundation

The Reba & Dave Williams Foundation for Literature & the Arts

Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$25k
Granted FY2023
1
Grants FY2023
1
States reached
$25k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
0196% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2023.

Arts & Culture$206kEducation$99kInternational$4kOther$0
02FY2023 · 1 grant

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$25,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$22k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI$25,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–23) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 51% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

area typical 13%AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE BRITISH: $4k → 17%MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON: $5k → 16%PAT CONROY LITERACY CENTER: $35k → 10%FLORENCE GRISNOLD MUSEUM: $5k → 9%GREENWICH ARTS COUNCIL: $100 → 9%UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI: $25k → 18%ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS: $3k → 17%PAT CONROY LITERACY CENTER: $13k → 10%FLORENCE GRISNOLD MUSEUM: $500 → 9%UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI: $1k → 18%ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS: $728 → 17%PAT CONROY LITERACY CENTER: $10k → 10%IFPDA FOUNDATION INC: $15k → 17%PAT CONROY LITERACY CENTER: $10k → 10%THE NEW CRITERION: $10k → 17%PAT CONROY LITERACY CENTER: $2k → 10%AMER FRIENDS OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM: $5k → 17%PAT CONROY LITERACY CENTER: $1k → 10%HOUSE OF SPEAKEASY FOUNDATION: $2k → 17%METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: $6k → 17%YALE UNIVERSITY: $3k → 17%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

84%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$269k · 5 repeat orgs$49k to everyone else

5 repeat relationships: 1 still active in FY2023, 4 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

5
9

Total granted

$269k
$49k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

-24%
+65%

Still filing today

60%
56%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23
Arts & CultureMembership BenefitOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • LO
    LIBRARY OF AMERICA
    4× · 2019–2022 · $164k
  • TP
    THE PAT CONROY LITERARY CENTER INC
    5× · 2018–2022 · $71k · revenue +23%
  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI
    2× · 2022–2023 · $26k

Funded once

  • IF
    IFPDA FOUNDATION INCgraduated
    one grant, 2017 · $15k · revenue +690%
  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    one grant, 2022 · $10k
  • MM
    METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ARTgraduated
    one grant, 2017 · $6k · revenue +58%
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
Henry E Huntington Library and Art Gallery

The huntington library, art museum, and botanical gardens shares its world-renowned collections to support scholarship, foster learning, inspire creativity, and offer transformative experiences for diverse audiences.

Arts & Culture
2
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

See schedule osfmoma believes the art of our time is vital and shares it with passion and purpose, and that art and the creative process can open minds and help build a better world. for that reason, we assemble unparalleled collections,…

Arts & Culture
3
Clyfford Still Museum

Home to the art and legacy of the american painter clyfford still, we invite all to explore the potential of individual creative endeavor.

Arts & Culture
4
Newport Art Museum and Art Association

The newport art museum's mission is to share a diversity of art and experiences that spark reflection, inspiration, and connection within our newport community and beyond. the museum was founded in 1912 on the belief that arts and culture…

Arts & Culture
5
The Pierpont Morgan Library

The Morgan Library & Museum celebrates and shares the history and process of human creativity from antiquity to the present day through the preservation, study, and interpretation of a dynamic and growing collection.

Education
6
Institute of Contemporary Art Miami Inc

The institute of contemporary art, miami (ica miami), is dedicated to promoting the work of contemporary artists, and to the exchange of art and ideas throughout the miami region and internationally. through an energetic calendar of…

Arts & Culture
7
Kadist Collection Manager Inc
Arts & Culture
8
The William a Farnsworth Library and Art Museum Inc

The museum's mission is to celebrate maine's role in american art. to accomplish that mission the museum provides an extensive offering of collections, exhibitions, education and retail services to the general public.

Arts & Culture
9
International Academy of Fine Art

The florence acadamy of art was founed in 1991 by daniel graves (see schedule o for details).

International
10
The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences

The mission of the brooklyn institute of arts and sciences, d/b/a brooklyn museum (the "museum") is to bring people together through art and experiences that inspire celebration, compassion, courage, and the will to act. (see schedule o).

Arts & Culture
11
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Inc

Organization's mission statement true to the ambitious vision of its founder and her spirit of creative risk-taking, the mission of the isabella stewart gardner museum is: - to bring to life and preserve the rich historic collection; - to…

Arts & Culture
12
Philadelphia Museum of Art

The philadelphia museum of art - in partnership with the city, the region, and art museums around the globe - seeks to preserve, enhance, interpret, and extend the reach of its great collection in particular, and the visual arts in…

Arts & Culture
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Academy of American Poets Inc; the most unlike its peers is Metropolitan Museum of Art. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
04the grantee network

8 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 8 of the 14 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
8/8
Grantees still filing
5/8
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

LIBRARY OF AMERICA: $164,000 · OtherLIBRARY OF AMERICAUNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI: $26,000 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPIIndividual grant recipient: $10,000 · Other+3 more: $11,360 · Other+3 moreTHE PAT CONROY LITERARY CENTER INC: $70,561 · Arts & CultureTHE PAT CONROY LITERARY CENTER INCIFPDA FOUNDATION INC: $15,000 · Arts & CultureIFPDA FOUNDATION INCMETROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: $6,000 · Arts & CultureMETROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ARTFLORENCE GRISWOLD MUSEUM INC: $5,500 · Arts & CultureTHE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON: $5,000 · Arts & Culture+2 more: $3,388 · Arts & CultureHOUSE OF SPEAKEASY FOUNDATION: $2,000 · Membership Benefit
Other$211,360Arts & Culture$105,449Membership Benefit$2,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetTHE PAT CONROY LITERARY CENTER INC: $70,561 over 5y, 6.7% of budgetIFPDA FOUNDATION INC: $15,000 over 1y, 17% of budgetMETROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART: $6,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetFLORENCE GRISWOLD MUSEUM INC: $5,500 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetTHE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE ACADEMY OF AMERICAN POETS INC: $3,288 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetHOUSE OF SPEAKEASY FOUNDATION: $2,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetGREENWICH ARTS COUNCIL INC: $100 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.

Fidelity Investments …
Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift FundMA4.7× affinity4 shared granteesties to 0 of 0Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Reba & Dave Williams Foundation for Literature & the Arts funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Reba & Dave Williams Foundation for Literature & the Arts. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%1%3%6%10%funder's share of their income ↑0%3%5%8%10%share of the org’s income from government →median 2%
  • Florence Griswold Museum Inc: 2% of income from government
  • Greenwich Arts Council Inc: 1% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
3report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–10%
typical government reliance, FY20–25
How this is measured
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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to The Reba & Dave Williams Foundation for Literature & the Arts?

Find your warmest path to The Reba & Dave Williams Foundation for Literature & the Arts 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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 14 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2023, released 2023. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2024) is on record but names no grant recipient in the published copy, so the figures above are from FY2023, the most recent year this funder’s grantee list reached the public record.

Source object · view filing

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More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions
grants reported with no recipient in the public record
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
The endowment market
who holds foundation money, and what just moved
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home