· Private foundation
The Watterson Family 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 FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k20 grants · $75k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $23k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| OPFOB | $12,500 |
| ADA EXEMPT VILLAGE SCHOOLS | $10,000 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF THE LC | $7,500 |
| DEEP WELL PROJECT | $6,600 |
| BLUFFTON COMMUNITY SOUP KITCHEN | $6,600 |
| REAL CHAMPIONS | $6,250 |
| UNIVERSITY OF FINDLAY | $6,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| CHANGING OUR IMAGE NOW PROJECT | $5,000 |
| ANTIOCH EDUCATIONAL CENTER | $5,000 |
| BLACQUITY SC | $5,000 |
| THE CHILDREN'S CENTER | $5,000 |
| SANDALWOOD COMMUNITY FOOD PANTRY | $4,250 |
| VOLUNTEERS IN MEDICINE CLINIC | $3,000 |
| MEALS ON WHEELS | $2,500 |
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 (FY19–24, $56k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 23% 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.
27 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2024, 13 since wound down; 8 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, 69% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $31k 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 Findlay6× · 2019–2024 · $140k · revenue +4%
- HHHILTON HEAD ISLAND DEEP WELL PROJECT INC6× · 2019–2024 · $51k · revenue +8%
- BSBLUFFTON SELF HELP INC5× · 2019–2023 · $39k · revenue +48%
Funded once
- TWTOGETHER WE RISEgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $10k · revenue +148%
- BTBy The Hand Club For Kidsgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $10k · revenue +37%
- HHHILTON HEAD CHRISTIAN ACADEMYgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue +48%
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.
Charleston Habitat for Humanitys (CHFH) vision is a world where everyone has a decent place to live. Seeking to put God's love into action, Charleston Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities, and hope. By…
To provide low-cost housing for those in need in Brunswick County, North Carolina.
Habitat for Humanity of Berkeley County (HFHBC) is a community-level Habitat for Humanity organization that acts in partnership with and on behalf of Habitat for Humanity International. HFHBC seeks to put Gods love into action by brings…
The mission of Charlotte Family Housing is to empower working families experiencing homelessness to achieve long-term self-sufficiency through shelter, housing, supportive services, and advocacy.
The Community Foundation's mission is strengthening community by connecting people, resources, and needs.
Hope Harbor Home strives to break the cycle of domestic and sexual violence in Brunswick County, North Carolina.
To implement the Gospel of Jesus Christ in South Carolina and throughout the United States and the world by working with economically disadvantaged people to help them create a better human habitat in which to live and work.
Our mission is to facilitate the investment of capital in south carolina in order to improve the quality of life for all her citizens by providing responsible and affordable financial products and services that are a major catalyst for…
We strive to serve the community by constructing and rehabilitating homes for affordable homeownership, providing new housing rentals for low to moderate wealth families in south carolina, and providing services that aid in all aspects of…
To facilitate, develop, and advocate for neighborhood revitalization, affordable housing construction, preservation and economic development in Charleston County.
Partnering with economically disadvantaged individuals and families. Hancock County Habitat For Humanity seeks to eliminate poverty housing and to make decent, affordable shelter a matter of conscience and action.
Empowering south carolina communities and children's advocacy centers to deliver a best practice response to child abuse
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Beaufort-Jasper Eoc Inc and the most unlike its peers is Blacquity Sc. 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 19 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 4% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
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 57 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 University of Findlay ↗
- Who funds HILTON HEAD ISLAND DEEP WELL PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds BLUFFTON SELF HELP INC ↗
- Who funds THE VOLUNTEERS IN MEDICINE CLINIC ↗
- Who funds Blacquity SC ↗
- Who funds REAL CHAMPIONS INC ↗
- Who funds Fellowship Housing Corporation ↗
- Who funds Bluffton Community Soup Kitchen ↗
- Who funds PURE INC ↗
- Who funds KORE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds TOGETHER WE RISE ↗
- Who funds By The Hand Club For Kids ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF MIDDLE TENNESSEE INC ↗
- Who funds THE CHILDREN'S CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds HILTON HEAD CHRISTIAN ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds Second Chance Community Outreach Inc ↗
- Who funds HISTORIC MITCHELVILLE FREEDOM PARK INC ↗
- Who funds HOPEFUL HORIZONS ↗
- Who funds TRANSFORMATIONS BY AUSTIN ANGELS ↗
- Who funds STOP SOLDIER SUICIDE INC ↗
- Who funds Lowcountry Gullah Foundation ↗
- Who funds SANDALWOOD COMMUNITY FOOD PANTRY ↗
- Who funds FAMILY PROMISE OF THE LOWCOUNTRY ↗
- Who funds BLUFFTON AREA COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds COASTAL COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF SOUTH CAROLINA 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 Lowcountry · Heritage Classic Foundation · Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina Inc · The Bargain Box · Palmetto Electric Trust · The Church Mouse Thrift Shop Inc · Wexford Foundation · The Berkeley Hall Charitable Foundation · United Way of the Lowcountry · Central Carolina Community Foundation · Enstine Family Foundation Inc · Ginn Family 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 Watterson 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 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 Watterson Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Watterson 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.