How much did The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation grant in FY2024?

A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 61% of The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation’s grantee dollars go to organizations outside the IRS cause taxonomy (common for large international and research funders), so a chart would be mostly “unclassified” and misrepresent the portfolio.

02beneath the categories

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.

…and in their own words, year by year

2018

paymentsraiserpolicyscholars baylorfinal pledgepledge paymenthouston zoo's

2020

river oaksbirthfoodachievestrengthengamedisease

2021

fifth installmentfoster carerelationshipsfieldsengineeringworking togethercomputational

2022

final installmentfaith-basedstem cellslong-term goalexceptionalequine-assisted learninglearning sire's

2023

park umcmembershipfeevida unidaunida christianchristian radiostudent scholarships

Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.

03FY2024 · 65 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k9 grants · $34k
$10k–50k19 grants · $321k
$50k–250k16 grants · $2.1M
$250k+21 grants · $11M

$98,001

Median grant

States reached

$331M

Total assets

Largest grants

UNIV OF SOUTH CAROLINA EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION$1,004,392
BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE$950,000
BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE$750,000
UNIV OF SOUTH CAROLINA EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION$652,000
COLUMBIA COLLEGE$625,000
BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE$567,233
BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE$542,208
TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL$500,000
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS FOUNDATION$500,000
BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE$472,261
BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE$449,905
BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE$404,317
HOUSTON CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY$400,000
UNIV OF SOUTH CAROLINA EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION$400,000
BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE$398,971

02The need

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY17–24, $635k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15% — the area typically sits at 11%. 84% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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; 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, United Way ALICE — 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 14% of The Robert and Janice McNair 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, 73% of the giving stays in TX; read by stated purpose it is 67% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.

The Robert and Janice McNair Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address

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.

03Your edge

repeat funding

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.

79%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$78M · 141 repeat orgs$21M to everyone else

141 repeat relationships — 38 still active in FY2024, 103 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

141

157

Total granted

$78M

$20M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+29%

Still filing today

51%

30%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $276k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EducationArts & CulturePhilanthropyHuman ServicesHealthReligionOther

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

BC
Baylor College of Medicine
4× · 2017–2024 · $9.8M · revenue +28%
HC
Houston Christian University
6× · 2017–2024 · $3.8M · revenue +43%
CC
Columbia College
6× · 2017–2024 · $2.8M · revenue +23%

Funded once

UO
University of South Carolina - McNair Scholar
one grant, 2018 · $1.5M
UO
University of South Carolina - Columbia Athletics
one grant, 2017 · $1.0M
UE
USC Educational Foundation
one grant, 2018 · $1.0M

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

04Your field

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 McCombs School of Business

To provide support to The University of Texas McCombs School of Business.

Education

Trees for Houston

Trees For Houston grows, plants and maintains trees throughout the greater Houston area.

—

Houston Museum of Natural Science

The Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) serves as a valuable resources for the Houston community, offering extensive collections, exciting interactive exhibits, immersive environments, engaging films, compelling traveling exhibitions,…

Arts & Culture

Houston MediaSource

Houston MediaSource provides public access cable television programming for the City of Houston.

Arts & Culture

Houston Independent School District

The HISD Foundation supports Houston Independent School District's schools and programs.

—

Houston Christian Foundation dba

Houston Christian Foundation (HCF), an affiliate of the National Christian Foundation (NCF), was created to facilitate Christian giving by offering the convenience and efficiency of donor-advised funds through NCF. HCF provides educational…

—

Breakthrough Houston

Breakthrough Houston works with highly motivated, traditionally underrepresented students to achieve post-secondary success and empowers aspiring leaders to become the next generation of educators and advocates.

Education

Good Reason Houston Inc

To increase the number of Houston students learning in great schools.

Education

Houston Local Information

To strengthen democracy and improve the lives of all Houstonians one story at a time.

Arts & Culture

The University of Texas Law School

Provide support to the University of Texas School of Law.

Education

TrueWorks Houston

To see well-formed people create well-formed ventures and transform our city.

Religion

Harbor Christian Academy

Harbor Christian Academy (HCA) exists to transform students through classical Christian education.

Education

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Communities Foundation of Texas Inc and the most unlike its peers is Northwood University. 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.

the sector your giving your giving is ahead of the sector the sector’s ahead of you· dot size = how much the theme matters to each side

Ordered by the change in your giving — leaning in on top, pulling back at the bottom. The bar between the two dots is how out of step you are with the sector. Hover any row for detail.

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 35 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.8% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund

0.8%1/132

the rest of the field

13%

8,346/66,083

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.

06the grantee network

126 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

121/126

Grantees still filing

79/126

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Other$62,340,586Education$22,360,755Arts & Culture$5,166,000Philanthropy$3,563,039Animals$2,243,556Religion$2,120,000Environment$965,000

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.

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.

Albert & Ethel HerzsteinTX77.6× affinity36 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Albert & Ethel Herzstein · Strake Foundation · Greater Houston Community Foundation · The Brown Foundation Inc · Vivian L Smith Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · Mechia Foundation · John P McGovern Foundation · Houston Endowment Inc · The Elkins Foundation · Sterling-Turner Foundation · The William Stamps Farish Fund

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 organisation The Robert and Janice McNair 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.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

2get no government money at all

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%

typical government reliance, FY20–24

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. 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.

05Through Plinth

Through Plinth

Your grantmaking, live and operational

This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: Scripture Awakening.

Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk

Financial management

high risk

~2 months of operating runway; revenue contracted over 8 filed years.

Track record & reputation

low risk

8 years of Form 990 filings, still active.

Legal standing

low risk

US 501(c)(3); EIN 541886930 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.

Governance

Live in Plinth

Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.

Compliance & sanctions

Live in Plinth

OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.

Program capacity

Live in Plinth

Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.

Live · Plinth’s real DD engine

Run the actual assessment on Scripture Awakening, cold from public data.

Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.

Post-award monitoring · continuous checks

FlagFinancial stability— Roughly 2 months of cash on hand.
WatchSustained operations— Filing through 2024; revenue contracted over the period.
WatchReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 43% of their budget — load-bearing; a dependency Plinth would track.
Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.

What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.

Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing

Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro

How do I get to The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.

Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.

The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation

What you funded, over time

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Where the work is directed

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

126 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation?

More from the funding graph

The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation

What you funded, over time

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Where the work is directed

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

126 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation?

More from the funding graph