· Private foundation
The Sparks Foundation Inc
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k3 grants · $7k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $40k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $425k
- $250k+2 grants · $600k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Texas Public Policy Foundation | $300,000 |
| Midland Memorial Foundation | $300,000 |
| PBBHC | $200,000 |
| America First Policy Institute | $125,000 |
| America First Works | $100,000 |
| Christians Engaged | $20,000 |
| Midland Fair Haven | $10,000 |
| One Accord for Kids | $10,000 |
| Celebration Family Church | $5,000 |
| Texas Scorecard | $1,000 |
| Flag Foundation | $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 (FY19–21, $75k) land where the poverty rate runs at 6%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% 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 +67% since the first grant, against +14% for the ones you funded once.
18 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2024, 12 since wound down; 5 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, 71% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $316k 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
- TPTEXAS PUBLIC POLICY FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2024 · $1.4M · revenue +137%
- YLYOUNG LIFE3× · 2020–2022 · $500k · revenue +62%
- MCMIDLAND CLASSICAL ACADEMY3× · 2020–2022 · $205k · revenue +67%
Funded once
- MBMIDLAND BIBLE CHURCHone grant, 2020 · $33k
- MCMidland Chamber Foundationone grant, 2023 · $25k
- OIONEHOPE INCone grant, 2019 · $25k
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.
Christianity Today is a global community inspired by evangelical conviction to advance the stories and ideas of the kingdom of God. Our mission is to elevate the storytellers and sages of the global church.
As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.
The texas tribune promotes civic engagement and public education across the state by producing and sharing for free public data interactives, statewide events and intensive and daily reporting on texas public policy, politics and current…
The Progress Texas Institute provides research and strategic communications on issues with the ultimate goal of increasing civic engagement.
At the Every Texan, we believe in a Texas that offers everyone the chance to compete and succeed in life. We envision a Texas where everyone is healthy, well educated, and financially secure. We want the best Texas, a proud state that sets…
Kingdom advisors is a discipleship ministry serving christian financial professionals. the organization encourages, educates, and empowers christian financial professionals with biblical wisdom to be effective disciples of jesus christ in…
To promote the flourishing of the people of oklahoma by advancing principles and policies that support free enterprise, limited government, personal responsibility, and individual initiative.
The international leadership institute (ili) changes history by accelerating the spread of the gospel through training and mobilizing leaders of leaders to reach their nations. ili accomplishes this purpose through cutting edge leadership…
The nonpartisan campaign legal center advances democracy through law at the federal, state and local levels, fighting for every american's rights to responsive government and a fair opportunity to participate in and affect the democratic…
Organized for religious purposes to promote the gospel of jesus christ by protecting, defending and advocating religious civil liberties
To advance economic and social liberties and a free enterprise society through strategic litigation, training, communication, activism and research. in addition, the center will train law students, lawyers and policy activists in the…
Leadership austin connects and develops leaders to courageously engage and transform our communities.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Texas Public Policy Foundation and the most unlike its peers is The Flag 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.
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 28 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) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 3% 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.
30 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. 30 of the 52 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 TEXAS PUBLIC POLICY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds YOUNG LIFE ↗
- Who funds HIGH SKY CHILDRENS RANCH INC ↗
- Who funds SENIOR LIFE MIDLAND INC ↗
- Who funds MIDLAND CLASSICAL ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds AMERICA FIRST POLICY INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICA FIRST WORKS INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNIO FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Christians Engaged ↗
- Who funds MIDLAND COMMUNITY THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds ONE ACCORD FOR KIDS ↗
- Who funds POLWARTH MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds The Way Retreat Center ↗
- Who funds PRAGER UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MIDLAND FAIR HAVENS ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY CHILDREN'S MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds MOUNTAIN STATES LEGAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds China Aid Association Inc ↗
- Who funds TURNING POINT USA INC ↗
- Who funds FIRST LIBERTY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds YOUNG AMERICANS FOR LIBERTY INC ↗
- Who funds CONVENTION OF STATES ACTION ↗
- Who funds Leadership Institute ↗
- Who funds THE FLAG FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds JUDICIAL WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds CITIZENS NEWS GUILD INC ↗
- Who funds Darren Patterson Christian Academy ↗
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: Abell-Hanger Foundation · Christian Community Foundation Inc · Beal Foundation · Scharbauer Foundation Inc · Permian Basin Area Foundation · The Paul J Williams Foundation · Warren Charitable Foundation · United Way of Midland Inc · The Fasken Foundation · Fmh Foundation · The Henry Foundation · Wayne & Jo Ann Moore Charitable 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 Sparks 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.