· Private foundation
The Ruffin Family Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k12 grants · $31k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $200k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CLEVELAND CLINIC | $100,000 |
| NORFOLK ACADEMY | $100,000 |
| VB Court Appointed Special Advocates | $5,000 |
| VA Beach Police Foundation | $4,800 |
| American Heart Association | $4,027 |
| An Acheivable Dream | $3,000 |
| FACT | $3,000 |
| Charles Barker's Champions for Kids | $2,500 |
| Fight CF Foundation | $2,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,000 |
| riseVB | $2,000 |
| Virginia Aquarium Foundation | $1,000 |
| VA Gentlemen Foundation | $1,000 |
| World Wide Women Group | $250 |
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 (FY17–25, $159k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 98% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 10% of The Ruffin Family Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 72% of the giving stays in VA; read by stated purpose it is 64% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +33% since the first grant, against +10% for the ones you funded once.
26 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2025, 17 since wound down; 5 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, 52% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $110k 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
- AAAN ACHIEVABLE DREAM INC7× · 2017–2025 · $157k · revenue +234%
- AHAmerican Heart Association Inc9× · 2017–2025 · $26k · revenue +33%
- VBVirginia Beach Rescue Squad Foundation Inc3× · 2017–2023 · $6k · revenue +66%
Funded once
- TDTHE DISCOVERY LAND COMPANY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2019 · $100k · revenue -83%
- CBCLUB BLUE OF THE HAMPTON ROADSone grant, 2022 · $5k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2024 · $4k
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 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…
We fund game-changing research and all-star scientists to accelerate victory over cancer and save lives.
Building upon the collective strength of the vasculitis community, the vasculitis foundation supports, inspires and empowers individuals with vasculitis and their families through a wide range of education, research, clinical, and…
Conquer cancer funds research for every type of cancer to benefit every patient, everywhere. working in collaboration with a global network of top scientists and clinicians, and leading advocacy and research organizations, conquer cancer…
To cure cf and provide all people with cf the opportunity to lead long, fulfilling lives by funding research and drug development, partnering with the cf community, and advancing high-quality, specialized care.
City of Hope's mission is to make hope a reality for all touched by cancer and diabetes. PLEASE SEE SCHEDULE O FOR A CONTINUATION OF OUR MISSION
Pva research foundation inc., a non-profit organization founded in washington, dc in 1976, is controlled by the paralyzed veterans of america ("pva"), a national organization chartered by the u.s. congress on august 11, 1971. pva research…
The prostate cancer foundation (pcf) funds the world's most promising research on the biology and treatment of prostate cancer, accelerating those discoveries into therapies and strategies designed to improve the quality of life and…
The mission of dfci is to provide expert, compassionate, and equitable care to children, adults, and their families, while advancing the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, cure, and prevention of cancer and related diseases. we train new…
Susan g. komen has an unmatched, comprehensive 360-degree approach to fighting breast cancer across all fronts and supporting millions of people in the u.s. and in countries worldwide. we advocate for policies to protect patients, drive…
Virginia hospital center foundation is the philanthropic arm of virginia hospital center. virginia hospital center foundation inspires charitable giving to support the tax-exempt purpose of virginia hospital center.
Susan g. komen 's mission is to save lives by meeting the most critical needs in our communities & investing in breakthrough research to prevent & cure breast cancer.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Hope House Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Small Cell Ovarian Cancer 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 25 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) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 5% 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.
40 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. 40 of the 84 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 THE NORFOLK ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA GENTLEMEN FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AN ACHIEVABLE DREAM INC ↗
- Who funds THE DISCOVERY LAND COMPANY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds RISEVB ↗
- Who funds Virginia Beach Rescue Squad Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds TEAM GLEASON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HOLA INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA TECH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA BEACH POLICE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ASPEN HOPE CENTER ↗
- Who funds Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters ↗
- Who funds CHICKS FOR CHARITY ↗
- Who funds FIGHT CF FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WE ARE VB ↗
- Who funds MEMORIAL SLOAN-KETTERING CANCER CENTER ↗
- Who funds SUGAR PLUM INC ↗
- Who funds The River Ellis Foundation ↗
- Who funds Samaritan House Inc ↗
- Who funds HOPE HOUSE 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: Hampton Roads Community Foundation · United Way of South Hampton Roads · Sentara Health · C Barker Champions for Charity Inc · The Townsend Family Foundation · Franklin Family Foundation · E C Wareheim Foundation · Chesapeake Bay Wine Classic Foundation · Tidewater Jewish Foundation Inc · The Windward Foundation · Sterzing Charitable Trust · Virginia Beach Billfish 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 Ruffin Family 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.
- Committee On Temporary Shelter Inc — 52% of income from government
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.