· Private foundation
The Sybil Smith Foundation
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 FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $112k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
- $250k+1 grant · $300k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DUMAS WESLEY COMMUNITY CENTER | $300,000 |
| NORTHWEST FLORIDA BALLET | $50,000 |
| ALABAMA SCHOOL OF MATH AND SCIENCE | $46,000 |
| MONROE COUNTY HERITAGE MUSEUM | $33,169 |
| MOBILE BOTANICAL GARDENS | $12,500 |
| PROVIDENCE FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| MOBILE MUSEUM OF ART | $10,000 |
| NATURE CONSERVANCY OF ALABAMA | $5,000 |
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 (FY18–18, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 19%, against an area that typically sits at 15%. 100% 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.
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 +79% since the first grant, against +11% for the ones you funded once.
14 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2024, 7 since wound down; 1 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k 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
- NFNORTHWEST FLORIDA BALLET INC4× · 2018–2024 · $200k · revenue +16%
- MCMONROE COUNTY HERITAGE MUSEUM4× · 2018–2024 · $127k · revenue +100%
- MMMOBILE MUSEUM OF ART INC2× · 2020–2024 · $22k · revenue +79%
Funded once
- AFAlabama Forest Land Trust Incgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $25k · revenue +194%
- SOSOCIETY OF 1868 INCone grant, 2020 · $25k · revenue -40%
- CACOASTAL ALABAMA PARTNERSHIPone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue -19%
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.
The purpose of the organization is to make lives better through music by producing and promoting symphonic music and delivering music education programs throughout Alabama and the Gulf Coast region.
Provide citizens a means to protect the beauty, health and heritage of the Mobile Bay Watershed, Alabamas waterways and coastal communities.
To present a forum for business and citizens where an exchange of ideas can occur that will make Mobile a better place to live, work and do business.
The South Alabama Land Trust protects land and promotes environmental education in coastal Alabama so current and future residents can enjoy clean water and the seafood, wildlife, and outdoor recreation that define our area.
To build the ability of Alabama citizens and organizations to promote conservation through government and civic action.
Economic development authority for monroeville, al and monroe county.
Oversee and facilitate the collection, pasteurization, and distribution of human milk. Provide training and education for healthcare providers and community members about the health importance of human milk for neonates and infants.
Alabama Rivers Alliance is a statewide network of groups working to protect and restore all of Alabama's water resources through building partnerships, empowering citizens, and advocating for sound water policy and its enforcement.
To coordinate and to encourage cultural endeavors and to promote knowledge and appreciation of the arts and humanities in southeast alabama.
Acquire, preserve, protect, restore, manage & improve alabama lands & water of ecological, scientific, scenic, wildlife or recreational significance. conduct, sponsor, and encourage, engage in ecological study & research. support…
The Center operates in Southwest Alabama providing counseling and guidance to individuals, families, and groups experiencing problems related to stress, family discord, parenting, phobias, aging, rape, and financial difficulties.
To create tangible links to the past for the benefit of present and future generations.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mobile Arts Council Inc and the most unlike its peers is Build a Better Community. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
18 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. 18 of the 31 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 DUMAS WESLEY COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST FLORIDA BALLET INC ↗
- Who funds MONROE COUNTY HERITAGE MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds Alabama Forest Land Trust Inc ↗
- Who funds SOCIETY OF 1868 INC ↗
- Who funds MOBILE MUSEUM OF ART INC ↗
- Who funds Build A Better Community ↗
- Who funds PROVIDENCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COASTAL ALABAMA PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds Mobile Area Interfaith Conference ↗
- Who funds MOBILE OPERA INC ↗
- Who funds Feeding the Gulf Coast ↗
- Who funds ALABAMA COASTAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MAIN STREET MOBILE INC ↗
- Who funds Adoption Rocks Inc ↗
- Who funds ALABAMA AUDUBON ↗
- Who funds Mobile Arts Council Inc ↗
- Who funds Mobile International Festival Inc ↗
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: Alabama Power Foundation Inc · J L Bedsole Foundation Regions Bank Co-Trustee · Hearin - Chandler Foundation · The Ben May Charitable Trust Hancock Whitney Bank Successor Trustee · Crampton Trust #1255000731 Regions Bank Trustee · The Daniel Foundation of Alabama · Mary J Larkins Charitable Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · 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 Sybil Smith 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 Sybil Smith Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Sybil Smith 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.