· Private foundation
The Ruth Pruitt Phillips Foundation Inc
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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k15 grants · $64k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $20k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Volunteers of America Northern Rockies | $20,000 |
| Missoula Food Bank | $5,000 |
| Watson Children's Shelter | $5,000 |
| Missoula Art Museum | $5,000 |
| American Red Cross | $5,000 |
| Missoula Youth Homes | $5,000 |
| Clark Fork Coalition | $5,000 |
| Public Media Company | $5,000 |
| University of Montana Foundation | $5,000 |
| Mountain Home Montana | $5,000 |
| World Central Kitchen | $5,000 |
| The Food Group | $3,000 |
| Antelope Butte Foundation | $3,000 |
| Surfrider Foundation | $3,000 |
| Science Kids | $3,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $88k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 3% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
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 +56% since the first grant, against +45% for the ones you funded once.
23 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 1 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, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5k 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
- VOVOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA NORTHERN ROCKIES7× · 2017–2025 · $137k · revenue +226%
- ABANTELOPE BUTTE FOUNDATION INC7× · 2017–2025 · $46k · revenue +116%
- WCWATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC9× · 2017–2025 · $45k · revenue +52%
Funded once
- EWENVIRONMENTAL WORKING GROUPgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $10k · revenue +109%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $10k
- IFINTREPID FALLEN HEROS FUNDone grant, 2017 · $10k
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 the montana land reliance (mlr) is to partner with landowners to provide permanent protection for private lands that are significant for agricultural production, fish and wildlife habitat, and open space.
To create and sustain an optimal business climate, business prosperity and a strong montana economy through advocacy, education and collaboration, working to provide an empowered and educated workforce, reduce business growth obstacles,…
The montana wildlife federation is a statewide conservation organization dedicated to protecting wildlife, wildlife habitat, and public access for outdoor recreation.
The wyoming outdoor council's mission is to protect wyoming's environment and quality of life now and for future generations.
Health care services for the people of western nebraska and eastern wyoming.
Our mission: to end hunger in montana through food acquisition and distribution, education, and advocacy. we are the only statewide hunger organization, providing emergency food and increasing food access among needy children, seniors and…
To enhance community vitality by inspiring community giving and strengthening nonprofits
Provide food for individuals in need
The montana state parks foundation raises private support to enhance the visitors experience and build advocates for montanas state parks and recreation heritage.
Rocky mountain wild works to protect, connect, and restore wildlife and wild lands in the southern rocky mountain region. we work to secure the biodiversity of the mountains, plains, and desert ecosystems of colorado, wyoming, utah, and…
Greater yellowstone coalition works with all people to protect the lands, waters, and wildlife of the greater yellowstone ecosystem, now and for future generations.
The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Volunteers of America Northern Rockies and the most unlike its peers is Beaverhead Animal Shelter. 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 30 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% 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.
27 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. 27 of the 45 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 VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA NORTHERN ROCKIES ↗
- Who funds ANTELOPE BUTTE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds WATSON CHILDREN'S SHELTER INC ↗
- Who funds MISSOULA FOOD BANK & COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds MISSOULA ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds CLARK FORK COALITION ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds YOUTH HOMES ↗
- Who funds MOUNTAIN HOME MONTANA INC ↗
- Who funds THE FOOD GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds THE SURFRIDER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds STORY COMMUNITY LIBRARY INC ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL WORKING GROUP ↗
- Who funds SCIENCE KIDS ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL FOREST FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Sansum Diabetes Research Institute ↗
- Who funds Beaverhead Animal Shelter ↗
- Who funds GATEWAY FOR CANCER RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds PUBLIC MEDIA COMPANY ↗
- Who funds SUSSEX SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH-MISSOULA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds MISSOULA NORDIC SKI CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF THE ROCKIES ↗
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: First Interstate BancSystem Foundation Inc · Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation · Marshall and Mary Brondum Special Assistance Foundation Inc · United Way of Missoula County · Werler Family Charitable Foundation · Jane S Heman Foundation Inc · Missoula Community Foundation · Max and Betty Swanson Foundation · The Bill & Rosemary Gallagher Foundation · The Llewellyn Foundation · Homer A Scott & Mildred S Scott Foundation · Louis L Borick 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 Ruth Pruitt Phillips Foundation Inc 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 Ruth Pruitt Phillips Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to The Ruth Pruitt Phillips Foundation Inc 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.