· Private foundation
The Rock 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k14 grants · $74k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $33k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| VCU Foundation | $17,500 |
| John Marshall Center at VA Museum History & Culture | $15,000 |
| World Pediatrics | $7,500 |
| Culture Works | $7,500 |
| Elijah House Academy | $6,000 |
| Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library Foundation | $5,000 |
| Hanover Tavern Foundation | $5,000 |
| Free Clinic of Powhatan | $5,000 |
| Richmond Ballet | $5,000 |
| CancerLinc | $5,000 |
| Atlas Partnership | $5,000 |
| Soar365 | $5,000 |
| Captial Trees | $5,000 |
| Richmond Symphony League | $5,000 |
| Maymont Foundation | $5,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $48k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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 +54% since the first grant, against +1% for the ones you funded once.
26 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2025, 17 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 46% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $58k 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
- MFMAYMONT FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2025 · $34k · revenue +168%
- CCCommonwealth Catholic Charities5× · 2020–2024 · $25k · revenue +49%
- EHELIJAH HOUSE ACADEMY4× · 2020–2025 · $22k · revenue +72%
Funded once
- KQKing & Queen Co Historical Societyone grant, 2024 · $13k
- BSBon Secours Foundationone grant, 2024 · $10k
- RARICHMOND ANIMAL LEAGUE INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue +124%
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 richmond symphony performs, teaches and champions music to inspire and unite our communities.
Chamberrva is the trusted voice for modern business in the richmond virginia region. we are change agents, rallying to do the hard things that will create a more connected, prosperous, health and equitable community.
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…
We produce vital works of classical and contemporary theatre, with Shakespeare as our foundation. We approach this work boldly with a resolve to ignite spirits, educate minds and defy expectation.
The foundation determines the patentability and obtains patents on virginia commonwealth university (vcu) inventions and markets and licenses such inventions to commerical entities. the foundation's activities promote research efforts at…
To use the power of media to educate, entertain and inspire, using public television and public radio to make a positive impact on the communities throughout central virginia, charlottesville, the shenandoah valley, the northern neck and…
To provide investment and investment management and related services to the rector and the board of visitors of virginia commonwealth university (vcu), and/or to the private and independent foundations and other entities affiliated with…
The virginia association of museums is a statewide network serving the museum community. the association's mission statement is "the virginia association of museums helps our museum community succeed".
To present powerful voices so richmond can learn. to empower local voices so richmond can lead.
The mission of the valentine is to engage, educate and challenge a diverse audience by collecting, preserving and interpreting richmond's history.
To provide excellence in the delivery of healthcare.
To serve as the region's leading source of informational science education through interactive science demonstrations, hands-on education programs and outreach programs.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Way of Greater Richmond & Petersburg and the most unlike its peers is Free Clinic of Powhatan Inc. 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 35 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 3% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
38 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. 38 of the 57 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 MAYMONT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Commonwealth Catholic Charities ↗
- Who funds ELIJAH HOUSE ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds CultureWorks Inc ↗
- Who funds FREE CLINIC OF POWHATAN INC ↗
- Who funds WOODROW WILSON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE RICHMOND BALLET ↗
- Who funds CAPITAL TREES ↗
- Who funds Bon Secours Richmond Healthcare Foundation ↗
- Who funds ROSE GROUP FOR CROSS-CULTURAL UNDERSTAND ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF HOLLYWOOD CEMETERY ↗
- Who funds LEGAL INFORMATION NETWORK FOR CANCER ↗
- Who funds THE VISUAL ARTS CENTER OF RICHMOND ↗
- Who funds OPERATION HEALING FORCES INC ↗
- Who funds RICHMOND ANIMAL LEAGUE INC ↗
- Who funds FORE CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds ATLAS PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds FULL CIRCLE GRIEF CENTER ↗
- Who funds WORLD PEDIATRICS ↗
- Who funds Children's Museum of Richmond ↗
- Who funds RICHMOND PERFORMING ARTS ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds ASSOCIATION FOR THE PRESERVATION OF VA ANTIQUITIES ↗
- Who funds THE JOHN MARSHALL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ILLUME FAMILY RECOVERY INC ↗
- Who funds HANOVER TAVERN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MEDICAL COLLEGE OF VA FOUNDATION ↗
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: The Community Foundation Inc · The Anne C Robins & Walter R Robins Jr Foundation · Peachtree House Foundation · Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation · Herndon Foundation · The Mary Morton Parsons Foundation · Windsor Fdn Trust Uw Quincy Cole · Richard S Reynolds Foundation · Robins Foundation · Shelton H Short Jr Trust · Tesco Foundation · The Pauley Family 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 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.
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 Rock Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Rock 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.