· Private foundation
The Vandewater Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| INTERNATIONAL WALDENSTROMS MACROGLOBULINEMIA FOUNDATION INC | $2,575 |
| VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER | $1,000 |
| PROJECT REDESIGN INC | $1,000 |
| MORRISON UNITED METHODIST CHURCH | $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 (FY17–23, $6k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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.
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.
6 repeat relationships — 0 still active in FY2023, 6 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (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 FY2023, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5k 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
- TUTHE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE FOUNDATION INC5× · 2017–2022 · $75k · revenue +178%
- ECEQUAL CHANCE FOR EDUCATION2× · 2017–2019 · $40k · revenue +26%
- THTHE HARPETH HALL SCHOOL4× · 2017–2020 · $35k · revenue +141%
Funded once
- SHStarkey Hearing Foundationone grant, 2017 · $50k · revenue -80%
- ACARDENT CARES FOUNDATIONone grant, 2019 · $50k
- BABOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF MIDDLE TENNESSEEgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $25k · revenue +60%
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.
See Disclosure Above.
Nashville public radio's mission is to be the most trusted & independent nashville voice, connecting our communities through non-partisan journalism, compelling storytelling, civil conversation and music discovery.
Methodist Medical Center provides quality healthcare, in alignment with Covenant Health's mission to serve the community by improving the quality of life through better health regardless of a patient's ability to pay.
Cumberland Medical Center provides quality healthcare, in alignment with Covenant Health's mission to serve the community by improving the quality of life through better health, regardless of the patient's ability to pay.
Roane County Medical Center provides quality healthcare, in alignment with Covenant Health's mission to serve the community by improving the quality of life through better health, regardless of a patient's ability to pay.
The Academy's mission is to enhance member career fulfillment and promote brain health for all.
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 organization provides medical care to improve, maintain, and restore the health of the people in the communities we serve.
To be a successful physician led, professionally managed medical practice that benefits our patients and our community, while supporting the UT Health Science Center's mission through clinical excellence, financial responsibility and a…
Convene passionate, collaborative partners to help build bold, data-driven systems and solutions that promote healthy communities for all
With more than 1 million patient visits each year, Children's Health is North Texas' leading pediatric health system and among the largest in the nation. For more than a century, our mission has been clear: make life better for children.…
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Boys and Girls Clubs of Middle Tennessee and the most unlike its peers is Starkey Hearing Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
14 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. 14 of the 23 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 AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Starkey Hearing Foundation ↗
- Who funds EQUAL CHANCE FOR EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds THE HARPETH HALL SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds HEAL MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE ↗
- Who funds FAMILY FOUNDATION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds THE INTERNATIONAL WALDENSTROM'S MACROGLOBULINEMIA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NASHVILLE ZOO INC ↗
- Who funds Vanderbilt University Medical Center ↗
- Who funds CUMBERLAND HEIGHTS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds PROJECT REDESIGN INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE WARNER PARKS 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: The Frist Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee Inc · United Way of Middle Tennessee Inc · Hca Healthcare Foundation · Servant Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Charities Aid Foundation America · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
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 Vandewater 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.