· Private foundation
The Sumners Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k6 grants · $30k
- $10k–50k12 grants · $327k
- $50k–250k10 grants · $964k
- $250k+2 grants · $1.5M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $856,100 |
| LAW FOCUSED EDUCSTATE BAR OF TEXAS | $666,190 |
| YMCA OF AUSTIN | $175,000 |
| UNITED STATES ASSN OF FORMER MEMBER | $132,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $125,000 |
| YMCA ALBUQUERQUE CENTRAL NM | $125,000 |
| TEXAS TRIBUNE | $100,000 |
| AMERICAN LEGION TEXAS BOYS STATE | $75,000 |
| FUND FOR AMERICAN STUDIES | $65,400 |
| TEXAS FFA FOUNDATION | $60,000 |
| BRAVER ANGELS | $57,000 |
| FORT WORTH REPORT | $50,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF DALLAS | $45,000 |
| BAYLOR UNIVERSITY | $40,000 |
| TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY | $38,825 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY20–24, $1.3M) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 27% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
Which US states its grants reach
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +52% since the first grant, against +41% for those funded once.
67 repeat relationships: 26 still active in FY2024, 41 since wound down; 4 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, 69% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $873k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- YMYOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF AUSTIN5× · 2020–2024 · $910k · revenue +41%
TEXAS TRIBUNE INC8× · 2017–2024 · $810k · revenue +118%- UOUniversity of Dallas8× · 2017–2024 · $611k · revenue +36%
Funded once
- 2S28 SCHOLARSHIPS GIVENone grant, 2021 · $194k
- TGTHE GEORGE W BUSH FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $125k · revenue +37%
- SUSOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITYgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $80k · revenue +59%
How this is measured
Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
Closest unfunded matches
The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
The american enterprise institute is a community of scholars and supporters committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise. aei pursues these ideals through independent thinking and the…
The mission of the george washington university (gw) is to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings…
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
The foreign policy research institute (frpi) is dedicated to producing the highest quality scholarship and nonpartisan policy analysis focused on crucial foreign policy and national security challenges facing the united states. we educate…
Uatx is a nonprofit dedicated to building a liberal arts university committed to freedom of inquiry, freedom of conscience, and civil discourse. to maintain these principles, the university will be fiercely independent financially,…
The manhattan institute is a community of scholars, journalists, activists, and civic leaders dedicated to advancing opportunity, individual liberty, and the rule of law in america and its great cities.
Allbritton journalism institute aims to train a new generation of non-partisan political reporters from diverse backgrounds to produce high-quality, fact-based journalism.
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
Trinity university is an independent co-educational university whose mission is excellence in the interrelated areas of teaching, research and services.
The council on foreign relations (cfr) is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and…
The mission of the washington internship institute is to foster students' intellectual, personal, and professional development through individually tailored, quality internships and challenging academic coursework that take full advantage…
The peterson institute for international economics (piie) is an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to strengthening prosperity and human welfare in the global economy through expert analysis and practical…
How this is measured
75 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.
How this is measured
Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 75 of the 119 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.
Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding
A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds INSTITUTE FOR POLICY INNOVATION ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF AUSTIN ↗
- Who funds TEXAS TRIBUNE INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITIES FOUNDATION OF TEXAS INC ↗
- Who funds University of Dallas ↗
- Who funds THE FUND FOR AMERICAN STUDIES ↗
- Who funds Southern Methodist University ↗
- Who funds Braver AngelsInc ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds OKLAHOMA CITY UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds TEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds NEW MEXICO FIRST ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR TEACHING ECONOMICS ↗
- Who funds TEXAS FUTURE FARMERS OF AMERICA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds BAYLOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds St Edwards University ↗
- Who funds TEXAS PUBLIC POLICY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HUSTON-TILLOTSON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds NANCY LIEBERMAN CHARITIES ↗
- Who funds FIRST LIBERTY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds THE GEORGE W BUSH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FORT WORTH REPORT ↗
- Who funds Bill of Rights Institute ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ARCHIVES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE JAMES MADISON INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY STUDIES INC ↗
- Who funds Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL CONSTITUTION CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE PHILANTHROPY ROUNDTABLE ↗
- Who funds TEXAS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds San Antonio Report ↗
Co-funders
Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Communities Foundation of Texas Inc · Donors Trust Inc · Woodford Foundation · The Armstrong Foundation · Amon G Carter Foundation · Adolph Coors Foundation · The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation Inc · Bradley Impact Fund Inc · Bnsf Railway Foundation · Texas Instruments Foundation · Pierre F & Enid Goodrich Foundation · Texas Higher Education Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization The Sumners Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Sumners Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Sumners Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Sumners 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.
Play a game based on Sumners’ filings →