· Private foundation
The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation
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.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 50% of The Robert and Janice McNair Foundation’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k9 grants · $34k
- $10k–50k20 grants · $333k
- $50k–250k16 grants · $2.1M
- $250k+23 grants · $11M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| 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 |
| COLUMBIA COLLEGE | $625,000 |
| BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE | $567,233 |
| BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE | $542,208 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS FOUNDATION | $500,000 |
| TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL | $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 |
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 (FY17–24, $835k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 87% 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 18% 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, 72% of the giving stays in TX; read by stated purpose it is 64% — 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 +28% since the first grant, against +13% for the ones you funded once.
132 repeat relationships — 39 still active in FY2024, 93 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $226k 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
- BCBaylor College of Medicine4× · 2017–2024 · $12M · revenue +67%
Houston Zoo Inc7× · 2017–2024 · $5.0M · revenue +16%
University of South Carolina Educational Foundation3× · 2018–2024 · $4.6M · revenue +21%
Funded once
- UOUniversity of South Carolina - McNair Scholarone grant, 2018 · $1.5M
- UOUniversity of South Carolina - Columbia Athleticsone grant, 2017 · $1.0M
- BSBCM-Dr Sameer Shethone 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.
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.
Plant, protect and promote trees all over the greater Houston area.
The mission of the Houston Museum of Natural Science shall be to preserve and advance the general knowledge of natural science; to enhance in individuals the knowledge of and delight in natural science and related subjects; and to maintain…
The HISD Foundation is dedicated to mobilizing the local community to support innovative priorities in HISD to improve outcomes for all students in the district. Our mission is to fund projects and programs of merit that fall outside of…
The mission of Breakthrough Houston (BTH) is to work with highly motivated students to achieve post-secondary success and empower aspiring leaders to become the next generation of educational advocates.
As the Houston affiliate of the National Christian Foundation (NCF), our mission is to serve and encourage givers to grow as faithful stewards who give wisely to further the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Houston Local Information Initiative, Inc. provides public service journalism that reflects the civic needs of the diverse communities comprising Greater Houston.
American Leadership Forum (ALF) brings together, in classes, leaders with diverse perspectives so they can build relationships, learn to dialogue and respectfully differ, and work together for the good of our community.
See schedule ocentral houston champions a thriving downtown by connecting influential leaders through initiatives that advance the future of business and community for all.
Our mission is to be the leading advocate for our member physicians, their patients and our community, in promoting the highest standards of ethical medical practice, access to quality medical care, medical education, research, and…
See Schedule OSt. John's School is an independent, co-educational day school presenting a 13-year sequence of college preparatory training. A non-profit institution, it was founded in 1946 to provide the community with a school of exacting…
To generate superior long-term investment returns to support The University of Texas and Texas A&M University systems as they provide world-class teaching, push the boundaries of discovery, and achieve excellence in patient healthcare for…
Rebuilding Together Houston is the only organization in Houston and Harris County providing free home repairs to hundreds of families each year. We employ licensed contractors to restore homes to safe, livable conditions, extending each…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Greater Houston Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Luis Palau Association. 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 40 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) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% 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.
149 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. 149 of the 284 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 Baylor College of Medicine ↗
- Who funds Houston Zoo Inc ↗
- Who funds University of South Carolina Educational Foundation ↗
- Who funds THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds HOUSTON CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Columbia College ↗
- Who funds United Way of Greater Houston ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds PRO-VISION INC ↗
- Who funds Houston Grand Opera Association Inc ↗
- Who funds The Brookwood Community Inc ↗
- Who funds Northwood University ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ASTROS GOLF FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds William Marsh Rice University ↗
- Who funds University of St Thomas ↗
- Who funds MOTHER EMANUEL MEMORIAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CAMP BLESSING TEXAS INC ↗
- Who funds Charleston Collegiate School ↗
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: Albert & Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation · Greater Houston Community Foundation · Strake Foundation · The Brown Foundation Inc · Vivian L Smith Foundation · The William Stamps Farish Fund · Mechia Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · John P McGovern Foundation · The Elkins Foundation · Houston Endowment Inc · MD Anderson 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 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.
- Southeastern Guide Dogs Inc — 0% of income from government
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 and Janice McNair Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Robert and Janice McNair 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.