· Public charity
The Robison Excelsior Foundation
The foundation's mission is to serve as an example of, and catalyst for, christian charity to people in need through a platform of grantmaking, volunteering, funder collaboration and community leadership.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k3 grants · $22k
- $10k–50k14 grants · $289k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $100k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| YOUTH VOICE | $100,000 |
| THE GRACE MUSEUM | $47,200 |
| HISTORIC PARAMOUNT THEATRE | $35,000 |
| ABILENE ARTS ALLIANCE | $35,000 |
| ABILENE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY | $26,000 |
| BIG COUNTRY CASA | $25,000 |
| NATIONAL CENTER FOR CHILDREN'S ILLUSTRATED LITERATURE | $21,950 |
| CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ARTS | $20,000 |
| NEW HORIZONS RANCH AND CENTER INC | $15,000 |
| ALL KIND ANIMAL INITIATIVE | $13,500 |
| MENTORING ALLIANCE | $10,300 |
| BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS LONE STAR | $10,000 |
| ABILENE PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA ASSN INC | $10,000 |
| LETUSBREATHE | $10,000 |
| MIKE COPE MINISTRIESDBA WHAT REALLY MATTERS INC | $10,000 |
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, $142k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% 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.
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 +36% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
21 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2024, 7 since wound down; 2 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15k 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
- CAChina Aid Association Inc3× · 2018–2020 · $312k · revenue +26%
- GMGRACE MUSEUM INC6× · 2019–2024 · $200k · revenue +23%
- HPHistoric Paramount Theatre Inc6× · 2019–2024 · $175k · revenue +231%
Funded once
- CCITYSQUAREone grant, 2021 · $80k · revenue -57%
- TWThe Way Retreat Centerone grant, 2017 · $66k · revenue -95%
- TFTHE FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH ON EQUAL OPPORTUNITYgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue +108%
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.
The mission of Abilene Christian School, Inc. is to equip students to excel academically, serve meaningfully, and walk faithfully with God.
Pregnancy Resources' mission is to inspire hope and unconditionally love everyone we serve by empowering them to thrive through compassionate support and positive solutions.
The organization produces an opera or other musical production every year or every other year, and offers related Master Classes and other educational opportunities for elementary school through college.
The Organizations mission is to bring unity and efficiency to investigations of child abuse through the use of a multi-disciplinary team and, thereby, to provide the best possible services to victims of child abuse and their families.
We provide affordable quality child care for a diverse community. Our four licensed facilities deliver quality child care programming for children ages birth to 10 years, so that parents can work, attend school, and/or receive job training…
The purpose of the Organization is to provide knowledge and understanding of economics, matters of public concern, finance, education and training, and problems of minority groups therby promoting the economy and quality of life in Abilene…
RAISE Texas advances equitable policies and programs that foster financial security and economic mobility for low- and moderate-income Texans. We equip, innovate and advocate to reduce disparities, remove barriers and build opportunities…
Education of Children from pre-school through 9th grade
Our mission is to help the underemployed, through personal, career, academic and spiritual development, acquire the confidence and skills for gainful and long-term employment.
Creative waco's mission is to grow and support a thriving cultural and creative community in waco and mclennan county, texas.
The Family Guidance & Outreach Center of Lubbock is dedicated to the prevention of child abuse and neglect and supporting, mentoring, and educating parents.
Amarillo area casa advocates for abused and neglected children through support and training of court appointed volunteers
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Way of Abilene Inc and the most unlike its peers is Let Us Breathe Organization. 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.
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 28 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 27% startups (under 5 years old) — 7% of your grantees by number, and just 14% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 5% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
35 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. 35 of the 44 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 ABILENE CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds YOUTH VOICE INC ↗
- Who funds China Aid Association Inc ↗
- Who funds GRACE MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds Historic Paramount Theatre Inc ↗
- Who funds ABILENE ARTS ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds BIG COUNTRY COURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATES INC ↗
- Who funds BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS LONE STAR ↗
- Who funds NEW HORIZONS RANCH & CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Center for Contemporary Arts ↗
- Who funds CITYSQUARE ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF ABILENE ↗
- Who funds The Way Retreat Center ↗
- Who funds Abilene Zoological Society ↗
- Who funds National Center for Childrens Illustrated Literat ↗
- Who funds Abilene Philharmonic Association ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF ABILENE INC ↗
- Who funds THE FOUNDATION FOR RESEARCH ON EQUAL OPPORTUNITY ↗
- Who funds All Kind Animal Initiative ↗
- Who funds GREATER IDEAL MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH ↗
- Who funds MARC INC ↗
- Who funds CASA OF WEST TEXAS ↗
- Who funds LET US BREATHE ORGANIZATION ↗
- Who funds NORTH SIDE MOVEMENT ↗
- Who funds Love & Care Ministries ↗
- Who funds ABILENE COMMUNITY THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds Redirectional Outreach Program Efforts for Youth ↗
- Who funds MENTORING ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds HIGH SKY CHILDRENS RANCH INC ↗
- Who funds MISSION AGAPE ↗
- Who funds MIDLAND COUNTY SYSTEM OF CARE ↗
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: Community Foundation of Abilene · Barber Foundation · Shelton Family Foundation · The Legett Foundation · Dian Graves Owen Foundation · Greathouse Foundation · Kickapoo Springs Foundation · The Karakin Foundation · Je and le Mabee Foundation Inc · Moss Adamson Spalding Charities · Claude & Mae Moss Charities · Abell-Hanger 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 Robison Excelsior 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 Robison Excelsior Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Robison Excelsior 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.