· Private foundation
The Vanderbilt Family Foundation
Its FY2026 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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 55% of THE VANDERBILT FAMILY FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2026
- Under $10k10 grants · $56k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $127k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $175k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DEMOCRACY FORWARD FOUNDATION | $70,000 |
| AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC | $55,000 |
| CHILDRENS STOREFRONT | $50,000 |
| NEIGHBORS LINK | $22,000 |
| PROTECT DEMOCRACY PROJECT | $20,000 |
| WOOD RIVER LAND TRUST | $15,000 |
| PUBLIC CITIZEN FOUNDATION | $12,500 |
| TENNESSEE JUSTICE FOR OUR NEIGHBORS | $12,500 |
| COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS | $12,500 |
| PRISM | $12,500 |
| IDAHO CONSERVATION LEAGUE | $10,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA | $10,000 |
| CONNECTICUT FARMLAND TRUST | $9,400 |
| APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN CLUB | $8,000 |
| FIRST LITERACY | $7,500 |
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 (FY21–26, $106k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 24% 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 +32% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
38 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2026, 23 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2026 (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 FY2026, 60% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $144k 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
- WIWADE INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE EDUCATION INC6× · 2017–2024 · $338k · revenue +56%
- TCTHE CHILDRENS STOREFRONT6× · 2020–2026 · $329k · revenue +12%
- CFConnecticut Farmland Trust Inc8× · 2017–2026 · $84k · revenue +45%
Funded once
SHELBURNE FARMSgraduatedone grant, 2025 · $58k · revenue +257%- FIFuse Innovation Fundone grant, 2020 · $35k · revenue -45%
- SPSEEDS PROGRAMS INTERNATIONALone grant, 2017 · $32k
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.
Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)
To strenghten people's ability to guarantee their individual and collective right to a healthy environment, via the development, implementation, and effective enforcement of national and international law.
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.
To engage and catalyze global seafood supply chains in rebuilding depleted fish stocks and reducing the environmental impacts of fishing and fish farming.
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
Project drawdown's mission is to drive meaningful climate action by advancing science-based solutions and strategies. project drawdown's work is focused on three pillars: science - advancing science-based climate solutions and strategies;…
Grist is an independent, non profit media organization dedicated to reporting on climate change.
Friends of the earth strives for a more healthy and just world by defendng the environment and human health while advancing social and economic justice by conducting research and education, transforming the economy so it protects the…
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
The purpose of rainforest foundation us is to support indigenous peoples and forest communities in their efforts to secure their lands, protect their environment, and uphold their rights.
To protect the rainforest and advance the rights of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin. We partner with Indigenous communities in campaigns for human rights, corporate accountability, and the preservation of the Amazon Basin's…
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Democracy Forward Foundation and the most unlike its peers is South Bay Families Connected. 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 31 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
53 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 53 of the 75 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 WADE INSTITUTE FOR SCIENCE EDUCATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE CHILDRENS STOREFRONT ↗
- Who funds Connecticut Farmland Trust Inc ↗
- Who funds COMMON POWER FUTURE ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds DEMOCRACY FORWARD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Appalachian Mountain Club ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds NEIGHBORS LINK CORP ↗
- Who funds DING DARLING WILDLIFE SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds THE LAMBI FUND OF HAITI ↗
- Who funds Fuse Washington ↗
- Who funds NORTHEAST COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds IDAHO CONSERVATION LEAGUE INC ↗
- Who funds SHELBURNE FARMS ↗
- Who funds WOOD RIVER LAND TRUST CO ↗
- Who funds ROOT CAUSE FARM INC ↗
- Who funds SANIBEL-CAPTIVA CONSERVATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Fuse Innovation Fund ↗
- Who funds South Bay Families Connected ↗
- Who funds SEED PROGRAMS INC ↗
- Who funds APPRENTICE LEARNING INC ↗
- Who funds The American Himalayan Foundation ↗
- Who funds KICKSTART INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds VILLAGE HEALTH WORKS ↗
- Who funds PROTECT DEMOCRACY PROJECT ↗
- Who funds THE DIGDEEP RIGHT TO WATER PROJECT ↗
- Who funds WORLD ASSISTANCE FOR CAMBODIA INC ↗
- Who funds THE SEGUE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SUNFLOWER OF PEACE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE GRYD FOUNDATION ↗
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: Impactassetsinc · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · The Annenberg Foundation · Seattle Foundation · Boston Foundation Inc · California Community Foundation · Jewish Communal Fund · Tides Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · The Pfizer Foundation Inc
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 Vanderbilt Family 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Connecticut Farmland Trust Inc — 7% of income from government
- Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation — 4% of income from government
- Shelburne Farms — 3% of income from government
- Appalachian Mountain Club — 1% of income from government
- The Community Music School Inc — 1% of income from government
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 Vanderbilt Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Vanderbilt Family 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.