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Plinth

· Private foundation

The Rodney Fund

Its FY2023 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$1.6M
Granted FY2023
21
Grants FY2023
11
States reached
$200k
Largest
01What you fund
0183% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY20202023.

Crime & Legal$1.4MPublic Benefit$838kCivil Rights$444kEducation$340kSocial Science$314kScience & Tech$110kArts & Culture$50kHuman Services$38kOther$0
02FY2023 · 21 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2023

  • $10k–50k11 grants · $290k
  • $50k–250k10 grants · $1.3M
$40,000
Median grant
11
States reached
$32M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
MACKINAC CENTER FOR PUBLIC POLICY$200,000
LIBERTY JUSTICE CENTER$200,000
INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE$200,000
PAC LEGAL FOUNDATION$190,000
YOUNG AMERICANS FOR LIBERTY$150,000
THE AYN RAND INSTITUTE$80,000
Individual grant recipient$80,000
FOUNDATION FOR ECON EDUCA$80,000
JUDICIAL WATCH$70,000
Individual grant recipient$70,000
CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT THOUGHT$40,000
CAPTIAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION$40,000
STUDENTS FOR LIBERTY$35,000
HEARTLAND INSTITUTE$35,000
XPRIZE$30,000
02The need
03

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 (FY20–20, $28k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, 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.

area typical 9%YOUTH ON THEIR OWN: $28k → 15%0%20%40%50%more need →
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 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

IL
MI
NY
MA
PA
CA
VA
DE
AZ
NC
DC
AL
GA

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.

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.

94%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$3.9M · 20 repeat orgs$226k to everyone else

20 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2023, 4 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

20
15

Total granted

$3.9M
$131k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+34%
+58%

Still filing today

55%
67%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $95k went to new ones.

50%100%’20’21’22’23
RenewedFirst-time

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

’20’21’22’23
Public BenefitEducationSocial ScienceCivil RightsHealthCrime & LegalOther

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

  • MC
    MACKINAC CENTER
    4× · 2020–2023 · $535k · revenue +64%
  • IF
    INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE
    4× · 2020–2023 · $501k · revenue +57%
  • LJ
    LIBERTY JUSTICE CENTER
    4× · 2020–2023 · $493k · revenue +39%

Funded once

  • YO
    YOUTH ON THEIR OWN
    one grant, 2020 · $28k · revenue -12%
  • BH
    BEAUMONT HEALTH FOUNDATION
    one grant, 2020 · $25k · revenue -46%
  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    one grant, 2020 · $13k

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.

1
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

The american enterprise institute is a community of scholars and supporters committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise. aei pursues these ideals through independent thinking and the…

Social Science
2
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
3
Manhattan Institute for Policy Research Inc

The manhattan institute is a community of scholars, journalists, activists, and civic leaders dedicated to advancing opportunity, individual liberty, and the rule of law in america and its great cities.

Public Benefit
4
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…

5
The Libertarian Institute

Disseminate information and education about pertinent economic, social and governmental topics, via print, web and other media to educate the public about the principles of LIbertarianism.

Education
6
The International Institute for Strategic Studies - Us

To provide accurate, objective information and analysis on international strategic issues for legislators, diplomats, foreign affairs analysts, international business leaders, economists, the military, defense commentators, journalists,…

International
7
Peter G Peterson Institute for International Economics

The peterson institute for international economics (piie) is an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to strengthening prosperity and human welfare in the global economy through expert analysis and practical…

Social Science
8
The Lexington Institute

The institute supports and provides research regarding issues of public policy having effects on the rights, freedom, security, and quality of life of american citizens.

Education
9
Frontiers of Freedom Institute

To educate the public on constitutional issues and public policy matters. We are dedicated to the principles of individual liberty, peace through strength, limited government, free enterprise, and the values embodied in the Declaration of…

Public Benefit
10
International Republican Institute

Iri advances freedom and democracy worldwide by developing political parties, civic institutions, open elections, democratic governance and the rule of law.

Education
11
Independence Institute

The mission of independence institute is to empower individuals and to educate citizens,legislators and opinion makers about public policies that enhance personal and economic freedom.

Public Benefit
12
R Street Institute

The r street institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, public-policy research organization ("think tank"). our mission is to engage in policy research and outreach to promote free markets and limited, effective government. (continued on…

Education

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Judicial Watch Inc and the most unlike its peers is Praxis Foundation. 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 36 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number22%4%<5yr14%4%5–10yr19%13%10–20yr16%25%20–35yr13%42%35–55yr16%13%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value22%0%<5yr14%0%5–10yr19%26%10–20yr16%34%20–35yr13%37%35–55yr16%2%55yr+

The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
0.0%0/24
the rest of the field
13%
240,396/1,819,541

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.

04the grantee network

24 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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 24 of the 41 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
4
Early backer (in before they grew)
24/24
Grantees still filing
19/24
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

YOUNG AMERICANS FOR LIBERTY — $428,000 · OtherYOUNG AMERICANS FOR LIBERTYPAC LEGAL FOUNDATION — $410,000 · OtherPAC LEGAL FOUNDATIONIndividual grant recipient — $206,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientFOUNDATION FOR ECON EDUCA — $200,000 · OtherFOUNDATION FOR ECON EDUCAIndividual grant recipient — $190,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientCAPTIAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION — $80,000 · OtherFREE — $77,000 · Other+19 more — $275,600 · Other+19 moreMACKINAC CENTER — $535,000 · Public BenefitMACKINAC CENTERJUDICIAL WATCH INC — $184,000 · Public BenefitJUDICIAL WATCH INCTHE HEARTLAND INSTITUTE — $62,000 · Public BenefitTHE HEARTLAND INSTITU…+2 more — $13,000 · Public BenefitINSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE — $501,000 · Civil RightsINSTITUTE FOR …+1 more — $8,000 · Civil RightsLIBERTY JUSTICE CENTER — $493,000 · Crime & LegalLIBERTY JUSTI…THE AYN RAND INSTITUTE THE CENTER FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF OBJECTIVISM — $191,000 · Arts & CultureSTUDENTS FOR LIBERTY INC — $101,000 · EducationTHE REASON FOUNDATION — $23,000 · Education+1 more — $3,000 · EducationCENTER FOR INDEPENDENT THOUGHT — $80,000 · Social ScienceAMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR ECONOMIC RESEARCH — $25,000 · Social ScienceMercatus Center Inc — $6,000 · Social Science
Other$1,866,600Public Benefit$794,000Civil Rights$509,000Crime & Legal$493,000Arts & Culture$191,000Education$127,000Social Science$111,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetMACKINAC CENTER — $535,000 over 4y, 1.8% of budgetINSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE — $501,000 over 4y, 0.5% of budgetLIBERTY JUSTICE CENTER — $493,000 over 4y, 8.6% of budgetTHE AYN RAND INSTITUTE THE CENTER FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF OBJECTIVISM — $191,000 over 4y, 0.5% of budgetJUDICIAL WATCH INC — $184,000 over 4y, 0.1% of budgetSTUDENTS FOR LIBERTY INC — $101,000 over 4y, 0.6% of budgetCENTER FOR INDEPENDENT THOUGHT — $80,000 over 2y, 1.4% of budgetTHE HEARTLAND INSTITUTE — $62,000 over 3y, 0.9% of budgetYOUTH ON THEIR OWN — $28,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetInstitute for Humane Studies — $27,500 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetAMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR ECONOMIC RESEARCH — $25,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetBEAUMONT HEALTH FOUNDATION — $25,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetTHE REASON FOUNDATION — $23,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetGRACE CENTERS OF HOPE — $10,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetCENTER FOR THE RIGHTS OF ABUSED CHILDREN — $8,000 over 1y, 0.6% of budgetCATO INSTITUTE — $7,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetPraxis Foundation — $6,000 over 2y, 0.8% of budgetUS TERM LIMITS INC — $6,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetLeadership Institute — $6,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetMercatus Center Inc — $6,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE FUND FOR AMERICAN STUDIES — $6,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetTHE INDEPENDENT INSTITUTE — $6,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetLEARNING ABOUT DIABETES INC — $4,600 over 1y, 18% of budget
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 MACKINAC CENTER
  • Who funds INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE
  • Who funds LIBERTY JUSTICE CENTER
  • Who funds THE AYN RAND INSTITUTE THE CENTER FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF OBJECTIVISM
  • Who funds JUDICIAL WATCH INC
  • Who funds STUDENTS FOR LIBERTY INC
  • Who funds CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT THOUGHT
  • Who funds THE HEARTLAND INSTITUTE
  • Who funds YOUTH ON THEIR OWN
  • Who funds Institute for Humane Studies
  • Who funds AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR ECONOMIC RESEARCH
  • Who funds BEAUMONT HEALTH FOUNDATION
  • Who funds THE REASON FOUNDATION
  • Who funds GRACE CENTERS OF HOPE
  • Who funds CENTER FOR THE RIGHTS OF ABUSED CHILDREN
  • Who funds CATO INSTITUTE
  • Who funds Praxis Foundation
  • Who funds US TERM LIMITS INC
  • Who funds Leadership Institute
  • Who funds Mercatus Center Inc
  • Who funds THE FUND FOR AMERICAN STUDIES
  • Who funds THE INDEPENDENT INSTITUTE
  • Who funds LEARNING ABOUT DIABETES INC
  • Who funds IZZITORG

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.

Donors Trust IncVA19.6× affinity7 shared granteesties to 10 of 10Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Donors Trust Inc · Atlas Economic Research Foundation · Triad Foundation Inc · The Snider Foundation · Charles Koch Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Rodney Fund 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
202122232425
no gov · 20%1%5%11%20%your share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    2get no government money at all
    3report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    typical government reliance, FY2025

    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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 41 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

    Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2023, released 2023. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    More from the funding graph