How much does The Robertson-Finley Foundation give?

The Robertson-Finley Foundation reported 57 grants totaling $205,050 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 51 and 61 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Robertson-Finley Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Public Benefit (21%), Education (17%), Civil Rights (12%).

Who are The Robertson-Finley Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Institute for Justice ($72k), Pacific Legal Foundation ($66k), Baylor Medical Foundation ($56k).

Does The Robertson-Finley Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 0% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Robertson-Finley Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Robertson-Finley Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Donors Trust Inc, The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation Inc, Bradley Impact Fund Inc.

Where is The Robertson-Finley Foundation based?

The Robertson-Finley Foundation is based in TX.

The Robertson-Finley Foundation

The Robertson-Finley Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Robertson-Finley Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$205k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$12k

Largest

01What it funds

0198% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Public Benefit$340kEducation$273kCivil Rights$199kCrime & Legal$161kHealth$159kScience & Tech$86kHuman Services$63kArts & Culture$52kOther$0

02FY2025 · 57 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k51 grants · $137k
$10k–50k6 grants · $68k

$2,500

Median grant

States reached

$3.2M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
University of Texas at Austin Institute for Fusion Studies	$12,000
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center	$12,000
Baylor Medical Foundation	$12,000
Amazing Place	$12,000
Institute for Justice	$10,000
Pacific Legal Foundation	$10,000
New Civil Liberties Alliance	$7,000
State Policy Network	$7,000
The Leadership Institute	$6,000
Houston Food Bank	$5,000
Claremont Institute	$5,000
Judicial Watch	$5,000
The Heartland Institute	$5,000
Houston SPCA	$5,000
American Federation for Children Growth Fund	$5,000

02The need

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:

Its human-services grants (FY20–22, $21k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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.

Which US states its grants reach

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.

96%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$1.5M · 84 repeat orgs$69k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +48% since the first grant, against +15% for those funded once.

84 repeat relationships: 56 still active in FY2025, 28 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.5M

$69k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+48%

+15%

Still filing today

62%

31%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EducationPublic BenefitArts & CultureCivil RightsAnimalsCrime & LegalOther

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

IF
INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE
9× · 2017–2025 · $72k · revenue +57%
PL
Pacific Legal Foundation
8× · 2017–2025 · $66k · revenue +136%
WM
William Marsh Rice University
3× · 2017–2019 · $54k · revenue +104%

Funded once

TA
Texas A&M Foundationgraduated
one grant, 2017 · $18k · revenue +90%
UO
University of Texas Austin
one grant, 2017 · $17k
TU
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTE
one grant, 2020 · $10k

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.

United States Naval Institute

Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.

—

Foreign Policy Research Institute

The foreign policy research institute (frpi) is dedicated to producing the highest quality scholarship and nonpartisan policy analysis focused on crucial foreign policy and national security challenges facing the united states. we educate…

International

American Civil Liberties Union Fund of the District of Columbia

Preservation of civil liberties through litigation and public education.

—

Progress Texas Institute

The Progress Texas Institute provides research and strategic communications on issues with the ultimate goal of increasing civic engagement.

Civil Rights

Pew Research Center

Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan "fact tank" that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. Pew Research Center generates a foundation of facts that enriches the public dialogue and…

Social Science

American Law Institute

The institute's mission, as set out in its certificate of incorporation, is to promote the clarification and simplification of the law and its better adaptation to social needs, to secure the better administration of justice, and to…

Crime & Legal

Aclu Foundation of Texas Inc

The ACLU Foundation of Texas is the unyielding guardian and promoter of freedom, justice, equality and dignity of all people, particularly for those who are still fighting to secure the full exercise of their civil rights and liberties.…

Civil Rights

National Academy of Public Administration

The National Academy of Public Administration is an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit, non partisan Organization established in 1967 and chartered by Congress in 1984. See Schedule O

Public Benefit

American Civil Liberties Union of Texas Inc

The ACLU of Texas works with communities, at the State Capitol, and in the courts to protect and advance civil rights and civil liberties for every Texan, no exceptions.

—

Open Markets Institute

The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.

Education

National Association of College and University Attorneys

To advance the practice of higher education attorneys for the benefit of the institutions they serve.

—

Competitive Enterprise Institute

Competitive enterprise institute (cei) is a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government. we believe that consumers are best helped not by government regulation but by being…

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Heritage Foundation; the most unlike its peers is New York University. 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

60 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. 60 of the 102 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

59/60

Grantees still filing

47/60

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$797,992Education$274,300Public Benefit$219,500Civil Rights$156,750Crime & Legal$84,250Arts & Culture$48,500Animals$28,500

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

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 tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Donors Trust IncVA26.9× affinity11 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Donors Trust Inc · The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation Inc · Bradley Impact Fund Inc · Sarah Scaife Foundation Incorporated · Greater Houston Community Foundation · Bader Family Foundation · Diana Davis Spencer Foundation Inc · Shell USA Company Foundation · Holman Foundation Inc · Woodford Foundation · The Searle Freedom Trust · John William Pope Foundation

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 Robertson-Finley Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Robertson-Finley Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

6get no government money at all

8report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–25%

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.

Play a game based on Robertson-Finley’s filings →

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