· Private foundation
The Walter Alan Richards 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
92% of The Walter Alan Richards Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Community Foundation Of The Chattahoochee Valley Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 13 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2024, the last year The Walter Alan Richards Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 13 organizations, $114k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k17 grants · $66k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $48k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COLUMBUS STATE UNIVERSITY | $48,000 |
| COLUMBUS TECHNICAL COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC | $7,500 |
| BROOKSTONE SCHOOL | $7,000 |
| ST JOSEPH CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTER | $6,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE VALLEY INC | $5,000 |
| SPRINGER ACADEMY | $5,000 |
| ST THOMAS EPISCOPAL CHURCH | $4,000 |
| COLUMBUS MUSEUM | $4,000 |
| SPRINGER OPERA HOUSE ARTS ASSOCIATION INC | $4,000 |
| NATIONAL INFANTRY MUSEUM FOUDATION | $3,000 |
| YOUTH ORCHESTRA OF GREATER COLUMBUS | $3,000 |
| THE NATIONAL CIVIL WAR NAVAL MUSEUM | $3,000 |
| COLUMBUS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $3,000 |
| HISTORIC COLUMBUS FOUNDATION | $3,000 |
| DO GOOD FUND INC | $3,000 |
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 (FY25–25, $2k) land where the poverty rate runs at 18%, against an area that typically sits at 19%. 0% 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.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 6% of The Walter Alan Richards Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +14% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
21 repeat relationships — 17 still active in FY2024, 4 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call). Read against FY2024, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2025, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- BSBROOKSTONE SCHOOL INC6× · 2018–2025 · $38k · revenue +14%
- TCTHE COLUMBUS MUSEUM INC7× · 2018–2025 · $28k · revenue +40%
- YOYOUTH ORCHESTRA OF GREATER COLUMBUS INC7× · 2018–2025 · $21k · revenue +36%
Funded once
- ODOPEN DOOR COMMUNITY HOUSE INCone grant, 2025 · $2k · revenue 0%
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.
Maintain and operate a museum to collect, preserve and display articles of our community history which is open to the public
Receive and provide contributions for charitable and educational activities
The Columbus State University Foundation supports educational excellence and the expansion of educational opportunities at Columbus State University. The Foundation attracts, receives, invests, manages, and expends gifts and other…
The organization was established to support the heritage fund - the community foundation of bartholomew county, inc., the city of columbus and bartholomew county in indiana by preserving and maintaining land and buildings of historic or…
The mission of the columbus indiana architectural archives is to collect, conserve and promote the use of records that document the architectural engineering and arts associated with built environments of columbus, indiana.
The mission of the cincinnati observatory is to maintain the integrity and heritage of an historic 19th century observatory and to educate, engage, and inspire our community about astronomy and science.
To enhance the quality of life in the community by stimulating community interest in art, fostering creation and inquiry throughout columbus, and leading a vibrant arts culture tied to our unique history.
To provide the community with music, concerts, and music education.
To nurture a community where people can prosper in the business of music while contributing to columbus' overall cultural and economic growth.
Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra (CCO) creates intimate, transformative experiences that connect the musically curious.
Entrusted with the responsibility to improve the community's quality of life, the columbus foundation embraces the following: to assist donors and others in strengthening and improving the community for the benefit of all its residents.
To provide financial support to the columbus public library
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Columbus Museum Inc and the most unlike its peers is St Joseph Child Development Center. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 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 COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF THE CHATTAHOOCHEE VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds BROOKSTONE SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds THE COLUMBUS MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds ST JOSEPH CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTER ↗
- Who funds YOUTH ORCHESTRA OF GREATER COLUMBUS INC ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS TECHNICAL COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds DO GOOD FUND INC ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS PHILHARMONIC GUILD INC ↗
- Who funds THE COLUMBUS BOTANICAL GARDENS INC ↗
- Who funds HISTORIC COLUMBUS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SPRINGER OPERA HOUSE ARTS ASSOCIATIONINC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL INFANTRY MUSEUM FOUNDATIONINC ↗
- Who funds OPEN DOOR COMMUNITY HOUSE 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: Community Foundation of the Chattahoochee Valley Inc · The Jordan Foundation Inc · Lockwood Partners Foundation Inc · Bradley-Turner Foundation Inc · Mildred Miller Fort Foundation Inc · Jackson-Burgin Foundation Inc · Jw & Ethel I Woodruff Foundation Inc · McClure Family Foundation Inc Co Truist Foundations & Endowments Spec · Georgia Power Foundation Inc · The Cliboca Foundation Inc · Beloco Foundation Inc · The Cms 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 Walter Alan Richards 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 Walter Alan Richards Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Walter Alan Richards 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.