· Private foundation
The Sydnor Olga Oden 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 FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k18 grants · $84k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $112k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $70k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| TEXAS HEARING INSTITUTE | $70,000 |
| TEXAS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OFFICE OF PHILANTHROPY | $39,000 |
| THE SUMMER INSTITUTE AT PRESBYTERIAN SCHOOL | $28,000 |
| THE CENTER FOR PURSUIT | $20,000 |
| THE RISE SCHOOL | $15,000 |
| THE BURTON VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT | $10,000 |
| THE BROOKWOOD COMMUNITY | $7,500 |
| THE KINKAID SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| WILL ERWIN HEADACHE RESEARCH FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| COMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS OF HOUSTON | $5,000 |
| GENERATION ONE | $5,000 |
| THE GATEHOUSE | $5,000 |
| THE HOPE & HEALING CENTER & INSTITUTE | $5,000 |
| THE MONARCH COMMUNITY | $5,000 |
| PRO-VISION INC | $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 (FY21–24, $58k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 57% 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 +9% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
33 repeat relationships — 18 still active in FY2024, 15 since wound down; 6 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, 84% 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
- TCTHE CENTER FOR HEARING AND SPEECH5× · 2018–2024 · $320k · revenue +9%
Camp For All Foundation7× · 2018–2024 · $82k · revenue +278%
Culver Educational Foundation4× · 2018–2022 · $80k · revenue +9%
Funded once
- MFMARBRIDGE FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2021 · $25k · revenue -1%
- LFLEAF FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2021 · $25k
- THTHE HISTORY MUSEUM OF BURKE CO INC THE HISTORY MUSEUM OF BURKE COUNTYgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $20k · revenue +287%
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.
Plant, protect and promote trees all over the greater Houston area.
Provider of pediatric healthcare, education, research & community service
Our mission is to be the leading advocate for our member physicians, their patients and our community, in promoting the highest standards of ethical medical practice, access to quality medical care, medical education, research, and…
The mission of the Houston Museum of Natural Science shall be to preserve and advance the general knowledge of natural science; to enhance in individuals the knowledge of and delight in natural science and related subjects; and to maintain…
The Health Museum is an innovative science center that provides an interactive and entertaining experience for all ages, promotes understanding and appreciation of the human body, mind, and spirit, and inspires a lifelong commitment to…
Amazing Place empowers families facing the challenges of dementia and Alzheimer's and advances brain health for all. The Organization serves adults with mild cognitive impairment and mild to moderate dementia, caregiving families and…
The mission of Breakthrough Houston (BTH) is to work with highly motivated students to achieve post-secondary success and empower aspiring leaders to become the next generation of educational advocates.
The Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Houston's mission is to inspire and enable all youth, especially those who need us most, to realize their full potential as productive, responsible and caring citizens.
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,…
We create confident learners who lead lives of intellectual curiosity, self-knowledge, and social responsibility.
The Heritage Society (THS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1954 whose mission is to tell the stories of the diverse history of Houston and Texas through collections, exhibits, the arts, educational programs, film, video, and other…
To make hope, healing and well-being accessible to every person as an expression of God's love.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Methodist Hospital Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Burton 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.
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 35 years old; the field is 11. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 28% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 18% 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.
35 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. 35 of the 56 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 CENTER FOR HEARING AND SPEECH ↗
- Who funds Camp For All Foundation ↗
- Who funds Culver Educational Foundation ↗
- Who funds The Brookwood Community Inc ↗
- Who funds BURTON VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT INC ↗
- Who funds Joy Development School ↗
- Who funds River Oaks Garden Club ↗
- Who funds ARCHWAY ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds THE WILL ERWIN HEADACHE RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BURKE ARTS COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds MARBRIDGE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds The Kinkaid School Inc ↗
- Who funds THE HISTORY MUSEUM OF BURKE CO INC THE HISTORY MUSEUM OF BURKE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds Small Steps Nurturing Center ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR PURSUIT ↗
- Who funds BRIARMEADOW CHARTER SCHOOL PARENT- TEACHER ORGANIZATION ↗
- Who funds THE METHODIST HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PRO-VISION INC ↗
- Who funds Baylor College of Medicine ↗
- Who funds Hope and Healing Center & Institute ↗
- Who funds GENERATION ONE INC ↗
- Who funds THE GATEHOUSE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds HUNTERS CREEK ELEMENTARY PTA ↗
- Who funds HOSPITALITY APARTMENTS ↗
- Who funds Houston Botanic Garden ↗
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: Albert & Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation · Greater Houston Community Foundation · The John M O'Quinn Foundation · Vivian L Smith Foundation · Strake Foundation · The William Stamps Farish Fund · Marek Family Foundation · The Brown Foundation Inc · Shell USA Company Foundation · The Ellwood Foundation · Wayne Duddlesten Foundation · The Kayser 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 Sydnor Olga Oden 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.