· Private foundation
The Robert A Welch 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k19 grants · $747k
- $50k–250k26 grants · $2.7M
- $250k+19 grants · $36M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| TEXAS A&M FOUNDATION | $10,000,000 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN | $5,325,000 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER | $5,065,000 |
| RICE UNIVERSITY | $2,752,740 |
| TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY | $2,695,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON | $2,430,000 |
| BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE | $2,000,000 |
| BAYLOR UNIVERSITY | $1,300,000 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT DALLAS | $600,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $500,000 |
| TRINITY UNIVERSITY | $435,000 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS HEALTH SAN ANTONIO | $400,000 |
| TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY | $400,000 |
| TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY | $400,000 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT SAN ANTONIO | $400,000 |
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 (FY20–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 80% 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.
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 +24% since the first grant, against -10% for the ones you funded once.
64 repeat relationships — 60 still active in FY2024, 4 since wound down; 3 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, 73% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $11M 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
- WMWilliam Marsh Rice University5× · 2020–2024 · $18M · revenue +68%
- BCBaylor College of Medicine5× · 2020–2024 · $4.8M · revenue +47%
BAYLOR UNIVERSITY5× · 2020–2024 · $3.3M · revenue +24%
Funded once
- UOUniversity of Texas Southwestern Medical Centerone grant, 2020 · $6.7M
Houston Museum of Natural Scienceone grant, 2020 · $1.0M · revenue -10%- UOUniversity of Texas HSC at San Antonioone grant, 2020 · $275k
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.
Howard payne university is a christ-centered academic community dedicated to excellence by developing and equipping the whole person for intellectual inquiry, personal and professional integrity, and service to god and humanity.
The mission of Taylor University is to develop servant-leaders marked with a passion to minister Christ's redemptive love, grace, and truth to a world in need.
John brown university (jbu) provides christ-centered education that prepares students to honor god and serve others by developing their intellectual, spiritual, and professional lives. (continued on schedule o)jbu serves traditional…
Loyola University New Orleans, a Jesuit and Catholic institution of higher education, welcomes students of diverse backgrounds and prepares them to lead meaningful lives with and for others; to pursue truth, wisdom, and virtue; and to work…
The mission of the university is to educate leaders for a global society who are strong in character and judgment, confident in their identity and vocation, and committed to service and justice.
Scu is a christ-centered liberal arts institution equipping students for a life of learning, leadership, and service; integrating faith, learning, and living; and empowering graduates to excel and to positively impact their world for jesus…
The College of Arts and Sciences is committed to the development of the whole person through a liberal arts education of the highest quality. The School of Theology educates women and men to serve the broad whole of the Episcopal Church in…
Southern wesleyan university is a christ-centered, student-focused learning community devoted to transforming lives by challenging students to be dedicated scholars and servant-leaders who impact the world for christ.
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
Since 1890, whitworth has held fast to its founding mission of providing "an education of mind and heart" through rigorous intellectual inquiry guided by dedicated christian scholars.
University of the southwest is a christ-centered educational community dedicated to developing men and women for a lifetime of servant leadership by emphasizing faith, responsibility, and initiative.
Saint xavier university, a catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the sisters of mercy, educates persons to search for truth, think critically, communicate effectively and serve wisely and compassionately in support of human…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Hardin-Simmons University and the most unlike its peers is Houston Museum of Natural Science. 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 62 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 27% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
31 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. 31 of the 78 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 William Marsh Rice University ↗
- Who funds Texas A&M Foundation ↗
- Who funds Baylor College of Medicine ↗
- Who funds BAYLOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Southern Methodist University ↗
- Who funds Trinity University ↗
- Who funds Houston Museum of Natural Science ↗
- Who funds Texas Interscholastic League Foundation ↗
- Who funds TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds University of the Incarnate Word ↗
- Who funds ABILENE CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds University of St Thomas ↗
- Who funds St Mary's University ↗
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: Tulsa Community Foundation · Folds of Honor Foundation · San Antonio Livestock Exposition Educational Fund Inc · Michael & Susan Dell Foundation · Rc Caffarelli Educational Fund Frost Bank Trustee · Richard Wallrath Educational Foundation · Council of Independent Colleges · Je and le Mabee Foundation Inc · National Collegiate Athletic Association · Shell USA Company Foundation · Communities Foundation of Texas Inc · The Dallas 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 Robert A Welch 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 Robert A Welch Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Robert A Welch 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.