· Private foundation
The Sherman 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k5 grants · $24k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $20k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $130k
- $250k+1 grant · $400k
Anchored by a single position — about 98% of reported assets are held in Investment Brookshire Investment Trust.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| The Methodist Hospital Foundation | $400,000 |
| Restore Texas Ministries | $75,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $55,353 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| COLUMBIA HILL CEMETERY ASSOC | $10,000 |
| University of NC Greensboro (In Kind) | $8,550 |
| CCFA | $7,500 |
| COLUMBUS COMM HOSPITAL | $6,200 |
| ST ROCH CHURCH | $1,000 |
| SALVATION ARMY COLUMBUS CO | $1,000 |
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, $158k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
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 +20% since the first grant, against +14% for the ones you funded once.
9 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 7 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, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $44k 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
- TMTHE METHODIST HOSPITAL FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2024 · $1.7M · revenue +129%
- GIGRACEWOOD INC2× · 2020–2021 · $200k · revenue +20%
THE HOWARD UNIVERSITY3× · 2021–2023 · $93k · revenue +11%
Funded once
- AFAnimal Friends Rescue Projectone grant, 2020 · $150k · revenue +4%
- ARArmatus Reintegration Programone grant, 2020 · $100k
- SCSealy Christian Pantry Incone grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue -27%
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.
To lead a unified effort for a hunger-free texas.
As the Houston affiliate of the National Christian Foundation (NCF), our mission is to serve and encourage givers to grow as faithful stewards who give wisely to further the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Houston Pets Alive!s (HPA!) mission is to save the lives of at-risk companion cats and dogs and find them loving homes.
Food distribution to the hungry throughout an eight county service territory in Southeast Texas.
Our mission is to solve hunger in central pennsylvania by ensuring that everyone struggling with hunger has access to enough wholesome food every day. we will achieve this bold goal with the help of our generous donors, volunteers and…
To increase food access in Central Texas by providing nutritious food, leading hunger and poverty advocacy efforts, and transforming lives through programs, education, and innovative solutions.
Halo House's mission is to help save the lives of cancer patients battling leukemia, lymphoma, or myeloma by providing them with low-cost, fully furnished temporary housing while undergoing active cancer treatment at the Texas Medical…
To create a healthier future for children and women throughout our global community by leading in patient care, education and research.
Carter bloodcare saves lives by making transfusion possible.
Memorial hermann health system is a nonprofit, values-driven, community-owned health system dedicated to improving health. our vision is to create healthier communities, now and for generations to come. our values are community,…
To create a healthier future for children and women throughout our global community by leading in patient care, education, and research.
The WTFB exists to collect, purchase, and distribute food to feed the hungry in 19 counties in West Texas in partnership with volunteers and community organizations and to educate these partners and the public at large about the real face…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The 100 Club Inc and the most unlike its peers is Knock Out Ms 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 27 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 26% 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 15% 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.
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 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 24 of the 46 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 METHODIST HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GRACEWOOD INC ↗
- Who funds RESTORE TEXAS MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds Animal Friends Rescue Project ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR MONTEREY COUNTY ↗
- Who funds THE HOWARD UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Sealy Christian Pantry Inc ↗
- Who funds The Houston Food Bank ↗
- Who funds Nora's Gift Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds YOUNG SURVIVAL COALITION INC ↗
- Who funds K-9 ANGELS RESCUE ↗
- Who funds Young Men's Christian Association of the Greater Houston Area ↗
- Who funds Columbus Food Pantry Inc ↗
- Who funds THE 100 CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds Turtle Wing Foundation ↗
- Who funds KNOCK OUT MS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FREE WHEELCHAIR MISSION ↗
- Who funds CYSTIC FIBROSIS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Citizens For Animal Protection Inc ↗
- Who funds MARINE TOYS FOR TOTS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Purple Songs Can Fly ↗
- Who funds SHE SUPPLY ↗
- Who funds Northshore Food Bank ↗
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: Shell USA Company Foundation · Greater Houston Community Foundation · Celanese Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Enterprise Holdings Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Network for Good · National Philanthropic Trust · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc
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 Sherman 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 Sherman Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Sherman 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.