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Plinth

· Public charity

The State Firemens and Fire Marshals Association of Texas

The Association serves the fire and emergency responders of Texas and beyond, exists to improve the Texas fire service, and is committed to the betterment of Texas emergency services.

$332k
Granted FY2024still arriving
18
Grants FY2024still arriving
1
States reached
$38k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your fieldRead
01What you fund
01FY2024 · 18 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

The 18 grants below total $223,850 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $332,459 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $108,609 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k7 grants · $47k
  • $10k–50k11 grants · $177k
$11,175
Median grant
1
States reached
$3.5M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Robinson VFD$37,780
Granbury VFD$21,909
Downsville VFD$18,258
Sunset VFD$14,500
Individual grant recipient$13,402
Bethel-Cayuga VFD$13,300
Cisco Fire Department$13,075
Plantersville-Stoneham VFD$12,975
Joaquin VFD$11,175
City of Cooper FD$10,136
Rossville VFD$10,000
Laneville VFD$9,608
Wall VFD$7,192
Paradise VFD$6,550
Holliday Volunteer Fire & Res$6,500
02The need
02

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.

show:

Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY24–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 97% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 8%Ponder VFD: $6k → 8%Paradise VFD: $7k → 8%Timber Lakes VFD Inc: $6k → 9%Holliday Volunteer Fire & Res: $7k → 9%Granbury VFD: $22k → 10%Wall VFD: $7k → 13%Sunset VFD: $15k → 15%Cisco Fire Department: $13k → 15%Austin County EMS: $6k → 15%Plantersville-Stoneham VFD: $13k → 16%Beverly Hills VFD: $13k → 16%Rossville VFD: $10k → 16%City of Cooper FD: $10k → 17%Laneville VFD: $10k → 17%Joaquin VFD: $11k → 21%Robinson VFD: $38k → 16%Downsville VFD: $18k → 16%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

03Your field

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.

1
Valley View Volunteer Fire Department

Volunteer Fire Department that responds to service calls to extinguish fires or help with medical emergencies in the area.

Public Safety & Disaster
2
Broadview Volunteer Fire Department

Community volunteer fire deparment

Public Safety & Disaster
3
Littleton Volunteer Fire Department Inc

Provide fire and rescue services to the citizens of our fire district

Public Safety & Disaster
4
Stickleyville Volunteer Fire Dept

Fire department for the local community of stickleyville, va

Public Safety & Disaster
5
Fort Davis Volunteer Fire Dept Inc

Fire Protection & Emergency Rescue

Public Safety & Disaster
6
St Henry Volunteer Fire Department

Fire emergency response - increase fire awareness

—
7
Granville Coop Volunteer Fire Department

Volunteer Fire Department

Public Safety & Disaster
8
Marlin Volunteer Fire Department
—
9
Knifley Area Volunteer Fire Department
Public Safety & Disaster
10
Taylor Township Volunteer Fire Department
—
11
Volunteer Firemens Association of Falconer Inc

Volunteer Fire Department

Public Safety & Disaster
12
Valley Fire & Rescue Inc

Protect the lives and property of a rural community through fire suppression services, pre-fire planning and public education.

Public Safety & Disaster

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Timber Lakes Volunteer Fire Dept Inc and the most unlike its peers is Robinson Volunteer Fire Department Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

03the grantee network

9 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. 9 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
9/9
Grantees still filing
1/9
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Robinson Volunteer Fire Department Inc — $37,780 · OtherRobinson Volunteer Fire Department IncDownsville VFD — $18,258 · OtherDownsville VFDIndividual grant recipient — $13,402 · OtherIndividual grant recipientBETHEL-CAYUQA VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT — $13,300 · OtherBETHEL-CAYUQA VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPTCisco Fire Department — $13,075 · OtherCisco Fire DepartmentPLANTERSVILLE-STONEHAM VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT — $12,975 · OtherPLANTERSVILLE-STONEHAM VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENTJOAQUIN VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT INC — $11,175 · OtherJOAQUIN VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT INCCity of Cooper FD — $10,136 · OtherCity of Cooper FDROSSVILLE VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT — $10,000 · OtherROSSVILLE VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENTLANEVILLE VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT INC — $9,608 · OtherLANEVILLE VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT INCPARADISE VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT INC — $6,550 · OtherIndividual grant recipient — $5,915 · OtherTIMBER LAKES VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT INC — $5,750 · OtherGRANBURY VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT — $21,909 · Public Safety & DisasterGRANBURY VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPA…SUNSET VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT — $14,500 · Public Safety & DisasterSUNSET VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPTWall Volunteer Fire Department Inc — $7,192 · Public Safety & DisasterWall Volunteer Fire Departme…Holliday Volunteer Fire and Rescue Inc — $6,500 · Public Safety & DisasterHolliday Volunteer Fire and …Ponder Volunteer Fire Dept Inc — $5,825 · Public Safety & DisasterPonder Volunteer Fire Dept I…
Other$167,924Public Safety & Disaster$55,926

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetRobinson Volunteer Fire Department Inc — $37,780 over 1y, 4.9% of budgetGRANBURY VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT — $21,909 over 1y, 12% of budgetSUNSET VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT — $14,500 over 1y, 7.0% of budgetWall Volunteer Fire Department Inc — $7,192 over 1y, 2.3% of budgetPARADISE VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT INC — $6,550 over 1y, 1.5% of budgetHolliday Volunteer Fire and Rescue Inc — $6,500 over 1y, 5.9% of budgetPonder Volunteer Fire Dept Inc — $5,825 over 1y, 1.4% of budgetTIMBER LAKES VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT INC — $5,750 over 1y, 0.5% of budget
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.

Government reliance of your grantees

Every dot is one organization The State Firemens and Fire Marshals Association of Texas 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.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%1%4%8%15%your share of their income ↑0%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    4report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    typical government reliance, FY20–25

    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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 18 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

    Generated from your IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home
    State money flows
    the interactive map of money crossing state lines