· Private foundation
The Sands Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| John Bunker Sands Wetland Center Inc | $25,000 |
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 (FY20–22, $490k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 71% 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.
4 repeat relationships — 0 still active in FY2024, 4 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $25k 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
- TCTHE COMPASS SCHOOL OF TEXAS2× · 2022–2023 · $1.5M · revenue +712% · 67% of their budget
- TDThe Dallas Opera Foundation2× · 2018–2019 · $550k · revenue +6% · 34% of their budget
- UIUntrafficked Inc2× · 2021–2022 · $140k · revenue -12% · 62% of their budget
Funded once
- TRThe Retina Foundationone grant, 2020 · $500k
- DSDALLAS SYMPHONY ASSOCIATIONgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $500k · revenue +33%
- DADALLAS ARBORETUM AND BOTANICAL SOCIETY INCone grant, 2022 · $282k · revenue +22%
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.
Support of the dallas zoo as an outstanding center of education, entertainment and wildlife conservation through fundraising, volunteerism, promoting public awareness and participation, and enhancing the visitor experience.
The Forum educates, enriches and connects our community by presenting programs and events, creating experiences, and engaging global and local thought-leaders from the design fields to enhance how we live.
Downtown Dallas, Inc. Foundation is the charitable arm of Downtown Dallas, Inc. whose purpose is to help make the area in and around Downtown Dallas a more vibrant and livable place for both daytime and permanent residents by promoting the…
The society is a dallas nonprofit organization run by a group of passionate young women and other dedicated volunteers, focused on uplifting and empowering women to be safe, independent, and strong. women are statistically more likely to…
The mission of the dallas county medical society is to promote public health and advocate for physicians and their relationship with patients, while upholding professionalism in the practice of medicine.
The witte museum inspires people to shape the future of texas through transformative and relevant experiences in nature, science and culture.
The mission of texas trees foundation is to improve the health of cities and people through the transformative power of trees.
To support the mission of Dallas Theological Seminary by offering charitable planned giving and other related services to friends of the Seminary.
Glasstire is a website about visual art in Texas. Our mission is to expand the conversation about visual art in Texas.
Lone Star Flight Museum (LSFM) celebrates flight and achievements in Texas aviation, engages youth through STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), and believes aviation inspires achievement and endless possibilities.
With more than 1 million visitors annually, the fort worth zoo strengthens the bond between humans and the environment by promoting responsible stewardship of wildlife and ensuring diverse, high-quality educational and entertaining family…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Society Inc and the most unlike its peers is Untrafficked Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 18 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 COMPASS SCHOOL OF TEXAS ↗
- Who funds The Dallas Opera Foundation ↗
- Who funds DALLAS SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds DALLAS ARBORETUM AND BOTANICAL SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds FOREFRONT LIVING FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PARKS AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION OF TEXAS ↗
- Who funds Untrafficked Inc ↗
- Who funds The Family Place ↗
- Who funds DALLAS HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds SAVING HOPE ANIMAL RESCUE FUND ↗
- Who funds John Bunker Sands Wetland Center Inc ↗
- Who funds THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds IN MY SHOES INC ↗
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: Texas Instruments Foundation · Communities Foundation of Texas Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn 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 Sands 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 Sands Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Sands 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.