· Private foundation
The Scotts Miracle-Gro 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 FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k7 grants · $168k
- $50k–250k16 grants · $1.8M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| KIDSGARDENING | $215,000 |
| FRANKLIN PARK CONSERVATORY | $215,000 |
| THE NATURE CONSERVANCY | $200,000 |
| RESTORE AMERICA'S ESTUARIES | $160,000 |
| OCEAN RESEARCH & CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION INC | $130,000 |
| ALLIANCE FOR WATER EFFICIENCY | $130,000 |
| NATIONAL HEAD START ASSOCIATION | $100,000 |
| NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| NATIONAL RECREATION AND PARK ASSOCIATION | $100,000 |
| KEEP AMERICAN BEAUTIFUL | $100,000 |
| ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES | $75,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $72,000 |
| NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CONSERVATION DISTRICTS | $55,000 |
| TAMPA BAY WATCH (DISCOVERY CENTER) | $50,000 |
| AVALON THEATRE STREETSCAPE | $50,000 |
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 (FY21–23, $306k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 65% 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.
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 +34% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
29 repeat relationships — 18 still active in FY2025, 11 since wound down; 3 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, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $192k 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
- RARESTORE AMERICA'S ESTUARIES5× · 2021–2025 · $860k · revenue +102%
- AFAlliance for Water Efficiency5× · 2021–2025 · $650k · revenue +27%
- CBCONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS FOUNDATION INC2× · 2022–2023 · $600k · revenue +69%
Funded once
- THTHE HAGEDORN LEGACY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $776k · revenue -49%
- TAThe Allyance Inc CHEM Allyanceone grant, 2023 · $250k · 97% of their budget
SHARE OUR STRENGTHone grant, 2021 · $150k · revenue -38%
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.
Nacwa is the national voice of public clean water utilities, shaping water policy, convening a vibrant peer network, and empowering water leaders.
The national caucus of environmental legislators empowers a nonpartisan network of legislative champions to protect, conserve, and improve the natural and human environment.
Founded in 1889, the national association of regulatory utility commisioners (naruc) is a non-profit organization dedicated to representing the state public service commisions who regulate the utilities that provide essential services such…
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
The NW Energy Coalition is an alliance of over 100 environmental, civic, and human service organizations, utilities, and businesses in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, plus many individual members. The NW Energy…
Our mission is to advance renewable energy in the midwest by applying technical expertise and building support to expand markets. we focus on educating key decision makers through technical, communications and media work, and public…
Friends of the earth strives for a more healthy and just world by defendng the environment and human health while advancing social and economic justice by conducting research and education, transforming the economy so it protects the…
Ocean conservancy unites science, people, and policy to protect our ocean, today and for generations to come.
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.
American gas association's (the association) mission is to develop and advocate for informed, innovative, and durable policy that fulfills our nation's energy needs, environmental aspirations and economic potential. we are committed to…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the most unlike its peers is The Hagedorn Legacy Foundation. 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 31 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) — 3% 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.
31 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. 31 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 RESTORE AMERICA'S ESTUARIES ↗
- Who funds THE HAGEDORN LEGACY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Alliance for Water Efficiency ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MARIJUANA POLICY PROJECT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL HEAD START ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL RECREATION AND PARK ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE EVERGLADES FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL FISH AND WILDLIFE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES ↗
- Who funds The Allyance Inc CHEM Allyance ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION VOTERS ↗
- Who funds OCEAN RESEARCH & CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED RETURNING CITIZENS INC ↗
- Who funds SHARE OUR STRENGTH ↗
- Who funds THE WELDON PROJECT ↗
- Who funds THE BRONX DEFENDERS ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MEMORIAL HOSPITAL ↗
- Who funds TIDES CENTER ↗
- Who funds LAST PRISONER PROJECT ↗
- Who funds Mid-Ohio Foodbank ↗
- Who funds KEEP AMERICA BEAUTIFUL INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CONSERVATION DISTRICTS ↗
- Who funds THE NORTH SHORE LAND ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS METROPOLITAN LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE OHIO ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds COUNCIL FOR WATERSHED HEALTH ↗
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: National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · 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 Scotts Miracle-Gro 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 Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Scotts Miracle-Gro 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.