· Public charity
The Waterfall Foundation Inc
To serve as a supporting organization for other charitable organizations.
Read this first · the figures below need context
99% of The Waterfall Foundation Inc’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 4 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2024, the last year The Waterfall Foundation Inc named its own grantees at scale: 50 organizations, $3M. 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k21 grants · $663k
- $50k–250k27 grants · $2.1M
- $250k+2 grants · $600k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND | $350,000 |
| CHATTAHOOCHEE NATURE CENTER | $250,000 |
| CHASTAIN PARK CONSERVANCY | $200,000 |
| GIRL SCOUT OF GREATER ATLANTA | $150,000 |
| CATHOLIC RELIEF SERVICES | $150,000 |
| ST CROIX MISSION OUTREACH | $150,000 |
| MUSTARD SEED COMMUNITIES | $150,000 |
| BUCKHEAD CHRISTIAN MINISTRY | $100,000 |
| ATLANTA BELTLINE PARTNERSHIP | $100,000 |
| CHILDSPRING INTERNATIONAL | $80,000 |
| SOUTHERN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW CENTER | $75,000 |
| SANDWICH PROJECT | $75,000 |
| AGAPE YOUTH AND FAMILY CENTER | $50,000 |
| OCALA FARM MINISTRY | $50,000 |
| MOVING IN THE SPIRIT INC | $50,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $2.8M) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 72% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +38% since the first grant, against +27% for the ones you funded once.
83 repeat relationships — 25 still active in FY2024, 58 since wound down; 27 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, 60% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $100k 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
- SCST CROIX MISSION OUTREACH INC9× · 2017–2025 · $1.7M · revenue +15% · 87% of their budget
THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND5× · 2018–2024 · $1.0M · revenue +119%- AFAmigos For Christ Inc4× · 2018–2023 · $800k · revenue +33%
Funded once
- DPDynamo Parents' Club Incone grant, 2020 · $500k · revenue +19%
- CHCOVENANT HOUSEone grant, 2020 · $200k · revenue +1%
- SESCOTTDALE EARLY LEARNING INCone grant, 2020 · $150k · revenue -5%
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.
Our mission is to create thriving communities by helping nonprofits succeed. our work revolves around four primary areas of focus.1. we are a hub for social innovation 2. we are a capacity accelerator for organizations and their people3.…
ACP is a group committed to identifying and providing leadership on selected issues important to driving the economic development of the city of Atlanta and for which the ACP's active involvement will make a major difference. The ACP has a…
To develop, finance, and advocate for affordable housing at scale that promotes racial equity and healthy communities where families thrive.
Provides mediation services and mediation training for all manner of disputes, private and public, without the need for formal audication through the court system.
To provide low-cost transitional living and life skill programs to pregnant mothers and new moms between the ages of 18 and 24
Asian Americans Advancing Justice - Atlanta's mission is to protect and promote the civil and human rights of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders in Georgia and the Southeast through policy advocacy, legal services,…
Atlanta legal aid provides legal services to the elderly and indigent citizens of the metropolitan atlanta area.
Georgia Center for Opportunity GCO is an independent, non-partisan think tank dedicated to increasing opportunity and improving the quality of life for all Georgians.
InCommunity provides meaningful support to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to live safe, healthy, and joyful lives in their communities.
To serve atlanta, georgia, by providing quality economic and community development resources to underserved residents in a culturally competent, fiscally responsible, and ethical manner.
Cvc of atlanta encourages corporate members to develop excellence in corporate volunteerism. develop programs and provide resources.
The Center for Civic Innovation uses local data and research to strengthen civic engagement and scale community-driven solutions in order to ensure that local public policy reflects the needs and the voices of people in Atlanta.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Atlanta Union Mission Corporation and the most unlike its peers is Childspring International Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 30 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) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% 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.
249 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. 249 of the 279 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ↗
- Who funds ST CROIX MISSION OUTREACH INC ↗
- Who funds THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND ↗
- Who funds Amigos For Christ Inc ↗
- Who funds BUCKHEAD CHRISTIAN MINISTRY INC ↗
- Who funds MUSTARD SEED COMMUNITIES INC ↗
- Who funds PARK PRIDE INC ↗
- Who funds Chastain Park Conservancy Inc ↗
- Who funds ATLANTA UNION MISSION CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Dynamo Parents' Club Inc ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds Girl Scouts of Greater Atlanta Inc ↗
- Who funds ATLANTA BELTLINE PARTNERSHIP INC ↗
- Who funds CHATTAHOOCHEE NATURE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR GREATER ATLANTA INC ↗
- Who funds HAITIAN HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PROJECT COMMUNITY CONNECTIONS INC ↗
- Who funds OCALA FARM MINISTRY INC ↗
- Who funds SOCIETY OF ST VINCENT DE PAUL GEORGIA INC ↗
- Who funds COVENANT HOUSE ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS IN AGRICULTURE INC ↗
- Who funds URBAN RECIPE INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF DISABLED ADULTS & CHILDREN TOO INC ↗
- Who funds Inspiritus Inc ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW CENTER ↗
- Who funds SCOTTDALE EARLY LEARNING INC ↗
- Who funds CLUBHOUSE ATLANTA INC ↗
- Who funds GEORGIA APPLESEED INC ↗
- Who funds OPEN HAND ATLANTA INC ↗
- Who funds GEORGIA JUSTICE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds LaAmistad Inc ↗
- Who funds PROPEL ATL INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDSPRING INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds THE CONSERVATION FUND A NONPROFIT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Historic Oakland Foundation 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 Imlay Foundation Inc · United Way of Greater Atlanta Inc · The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta Inc · Tr Uw Charles I Branan · Atl Fdn-W Peters Main · Georgia Power Foundation Inc · Ryan Ida Alice Tuw Main · AEC Trust · Tull Charitable Foundation Inc · Tuw Thomas H Pitts · Tw Marian W Ottley Atlanta Main · John H & Wilhelmina D Harland Charitable 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 Waterfall Foundation Inc 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.
- Solar & Energy Loan Fund of St Lucie County Inc — 100% of income from government
- Feeding Florida Inc — 32% of income from government
- Our House 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 Waterfall Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to The Waterfall Foundation Inc 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.