How much did The Rock Foundation grant in FY2024?

A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 57% of The Rock 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

2020

programming

2021

frenchrichmondrestoreprogrammingeducation

2022

griefscholarship

2023

capital

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

03FY2024 · 15 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k11 grants · $55k
$10k–50k4 grants · $43k

$5,000

Median grant

States reached

$1.7M

Total assets

Largest grants

King & Queen Co Historical Society$12,500
Free Clinic of Powhatan$10,000
Bon Secours Foundation$10,000
Richmond Ballet$10,000
Culture Works$6,000
The Rose Group for Cross-Culture Understanding$5,000
ILLUME Family Recovery Inc$5,000
Medical College of VA Foundation$5,000
The Science Museum of Virginia Fund$5,000
Ronald McDonald House$5,000
Peter Paul RVA$5,000
Commonwealth Catholic Charities$5,000
Virginia War Memorial Foundation$5,000
Atlas Partnership$5,000
Northstar Academy$3,500

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 (FY20–24, $43k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12% — the area typically sits at 9%. 100% 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.

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.

65%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$327k · 22 repeat orgs$172k to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +77% since the first grant, against +67% for the ones you funded once.

22 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2024, 17 since wound down; 10 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$327k

$106k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+77%

+67%

Still filing today

50%

42%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 32% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $66k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureHuman ServicesEducationEnvironmentHealthAnimalsOther

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

MF
Maymont Foundation
4× · 2020–2023 · $29k · revenue +51%
CC
Commonwealth Catholic Charities
5× · 2020–2024 · $25k · revenue +77%
EH
Elijah House Academy
3× · 2020–2022 · $16k · revenue +54%

Funded once

C
CancerLINC
one grant, 2023 · $10k
FC
Fore Children
one grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue -49%
RA
Richmond Animal Leaguegraduated
one grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue +67%

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.

Richmond Civic Theatre Inc

Creating live community theatre experiences that engage, entertain, educate, and enlighten.

Arts & Culture

The Richmond Forum

To present powerful voices so richmond can learn. to empower local voices so richmond can lead

—

Richmond Art Center

To be a catalyst in Richmond for learning and living through art.

Arts & Culture

The George Washington Foundation

The mission of the george washington foundation is to enhance the public understanding of the lives, values, and legacies of george washington, fielding and betty washington lewis and their family members, particularly in the broader…

Arts & Culture

Washington Heritage Museums

The mission of washington heritage museums is to preserve, promote and maintain its five 18th century properties in fredericksburg, virginia and develop dynamic educational resources and programs to engage and inspire the intrest of…

Arts & Culture

Historic Richmond Foundation

To shape the future of richmond by preserving our diverse historic buildings, neighborhoods, and places, sparking revitalization, and championing our distinctive architectural legacy. historic richmond preserves, protects, and promotes the…

Arts & Culture

Community Health Center of Richmond Inc

To provide quality health care and specialty services that are affordable and accessible.

Health

The Board of Regents of Gunston Hall

To stimulate the exploration and understanding of principles expressed by george mason in the 1776 declaration of rights.

Arts & Culture

Richmond Center for Christian Study

To foster consideration and discussion of christianity

—

Virginia Commonwealth University

Virignia commonwealth university intellectual property foundation's mission is to foster a culture of innovation at virginia commonwealth university (vcu) and to protect and commercialize inventions created by the vcu research enterprise…

Health

Richmond Art Museum

Promote art culture/appreciation

Arts & Culture

The Richmond Ballet

Richmond ballet awakens, uplifts, and unites human spirits through the power of dance. dedicated to the evolution of ballet as a versatile language of movement that crosses national and cultural boundaries, we seek to draw an ever broader…

Arts & Culture

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Commonwealth Catholic Charities and the most unlike its peers is Thomas Jefferson Foundation Inc. 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 28 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund

0.0%0/27

the rest of the field

11%

771/6,952

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.

05the grantee network

25 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)

25/25

Grantees still filing

22/25

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Other$301,685Arts & Culture$79,500Human Services$43,000Environment$25,000Health$20,000Education$19,500Recreation & Sports$10,000

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.

The Community Foundation IncVA41.9× affinity18 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Community Foundation Inc · The Anne C Robins & Walter R Robins Jr · Peachtree House Foundation · Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation · Tesco Foundation · Herndon Foundation · Richard S Reynolds Foundation · Robins Foundation · The Mary Morton Parsons Foundation · Windsor Fdn Trust Uw Quincy Cole · Cecil R & Edna S Hopkins Family · Shelton H Short Jr Trust

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 Rock 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

1get no government money at all

0rely on government for over half their income

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: Fore Children.

Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk

Financial management

low risk

~11 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 541870905 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 Fore Children, 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

On trackFinancial stability— Roughly 11 months of cash on hand.
WatchSustained operations— Filing through 2024; revenue contracted over the period.
On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 5% of their budget — diversified.
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 Rock Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Rock 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 Rock 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?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

25 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to The Rock Foundation?

More from the funding graph

The Rock 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?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

25 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to The Rock Foundation?

More from the funding graph